At a recent forum organised by Fidelity Bank Plc to launch its agricultural products, the Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, Dr. Sayyid Abba-Ruma, disclosed that 90 million Nigerians are in a condition of utter vulnerability to different kinds of food.
The implication is that with this high number, Nigeria cannot take the issue of food for granted. The country is, therefore, seriously susceptible to the danger of lack of this basic need of life. However, the minister said food insecurity was worse than food vulnerability.
According to the minister, Nigeria has been facing a number of challenges in its goal to achieve food security including low application of technology, low yield on crops and poor financing of agriculture.
He said the policy of the Federal Government in the area of agriculture is to ensure that a substantial proportion of the food items that are currently imported into the country are produced locally through backward integration.
Abba-Ruma said the nation, in about nine years, used only 1.3 metric tonnes of fertiliser- which he described as less than the minimum requirement that would guarantee a good yield for the nation.
He also identified mitigation of the effects of climate change as another challenge that must be tackled in ensuring that the nation could produce food that is adequate for its citizenry.
It is in recognition of the importance of food sufficiency in the overall security of the nation that the present administration of President Umaru Yar‘Adua said it was committed to food security as one of its seven-point agenda.
With inadequate machinery, insufficient fertilizer and land with depreciating yields, some stakeholders believe that the nation needs to look up to technology to boost its food productivity and ensure security of human lives.
At a forum on ”Agricultural Biotechnology in Africa” held in Abuja recently, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Alhassan Bako, identified one of such technologies that should be used in addressing food insecurity in the country as biotechnology.
At the forum, organised by the National Biotechnology Development Agency, Zaku said biotechnology was critical in enhancing the nation‘s food security.
He said, ”Biotechnology products have achieved sales in excess of $500bn per year and a growth rate of 24 per cent since the turn of the century. There are regions of 4000 biotechnology firms across the globe and almost 50 per cent are in the European Union; 30 per cent in US and the balance in Asia .
”In the past five years, China has increased investment in the development and application of biotechnology to 12 billion yen or $1.5bn. It is encouraging that Africa recorded substantial growth in 2008 with Burkina Faso (cotton) and Egypt (maize) planting biotech crops for the first time.”
Writing on ”Biotechnology and Food Security in the 21st Century”, Ismail Serageldin, said one of the greatest achievements since the Second World War had been the phenomenal increase of research-based agricultural productivity, ”which has fed millions and served as the basis of economic transformation in many poor countries, especially on the Indian subcontinent.”
However, much remains to be done despite these gains. Poverty continues to limit access to food, leaving hundreds of millions of people undernourished in developing countries, he added.
According to Serageldin, ”Increased population, income growth, and urbanization will drive sustained growth in food demand, with a doubling of food needs in developing countries possible over the next four decades.
”A priori, biotechnology--one of many tools of agricultural research and development--could contribute to food security by helping to promote sustainable agriculture centred on smallholder farmers in developing countries.
”Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug estimates that to meet projected food demands by 2025, average cereal yield must increase by 80 per cent over the 1990 average.
”Making this formidable task even more difficult is that, to ensure that food production is coupled with both poverty reduction and environmental conservation, it will be essential that this increase occurs in the complex smallholder farming systems of the poorest countries.”
Director, Plant Resources Department, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, Prof. M. D. Magaji, said the Nigerian government‘s belief in the opportunities offered by biotechnology led to the establishment of the National Biotechnology Development Agency.
According to him, ”In the last 20 years, biotechnology has developed valuable new scientific methodologies and products, which need active financial and organisational support to bring them to fruition.”
He listed merits of biotech crops to include pest resistance, herbicide tolerance, disease resistance and drought tolerance.
He also listed requirements for its effective application in the country to include confinement of facilities for responsible development of genetically modified crops, adequate capacity building and a strong bio-safety regulatory system.
Magaji said hunger and poverty reduction must be addressed for the country‘s stability by integrating modern agriculture with traditional food production system.
According to him, ”Such a strategy would not only reduce the importation of foreign foods and agricultural products into the country but use the foreign earnings saved to rebuild the country‘s degrading infrastructure and provide the citizens with affordable, accessible and available services.
”We cannot turn back the clock on agriculture and only use methods that were developed to feed much smaller population. It took some 10,000 years to expand food production to the current level of about five billion tons per year. By 2025, we will have to nearly double current production again.”
Perhaps, the monthly agricultural biotech forum chaired by NABDA Director General, Prof. Babatunde Solomon, could help in taking this technology to farmers for increased productivity to ensure food security for the nation. As experts say, nobody ought to go to bed hungry in Nigeria.
© Copyright 2006 The Punch
