FOOD INSECURITY LOOMS AS HERDSMEN INTENSIFY KILLING OF FARMERS, EXPERT WARNS

IKEJA, Lagos – Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder and unless something drastic is done urgently, Nigeria will be thrown into major food crisis. Just few months back Coalition on Conflict Resolution and Human Rights in Nigeria said over 2000 lives have been lost to violent clashes between herdsmen and farmers in the country, leader of the group, Barrister Maxwell Gowon said in a statement. That was in April before the massacre in three local governments in Plateau State with reports that over 200 lives were lost.
There has also been reports of setting hectares of farmlands with economic trees on fire in Ilorin, Ondo and in other places. In some cases, farmlands have been taken over even with herdsmen writing farmers and ordering them to leave their farmlands. It is no wonder that Dr. Gbolagade Ayoola, Professor of Agricultural Economics and Policy has warned that food insecurity is imminent in Nigeria.
In this interview with starconnectmedia.com, the founder and President of Farm and Infrastructure foundation and Chairman Voices for Food Security in Nigeria provided insights and what he thinks can be done to avert this clear and present danger. Excerpts.

Nigerians are inundated with killings by herdsmen in Plateau, Benue, Taraba and other areas in the Middle Belt. What impact do these killings have on food security in Nigeria?

That is a burning issue. I have lived in Benue for up to 30 years and I know how agricultural they are. They do almost nothing other than farming. They are really the food basket of this country to the extent that wide spread displacement of people and their property has taken place in Benue. To that extent, this country is facing a looming danger of food insecurity in due course. it may not show as a short time consequence but in the medium to long term, what is happening presently in Benue in the middle belt, in Kaduna in the middle belt, in north east will demonstrate their effect in the medium to long term in many ways that are negative to the development of this country. Therefore it portends danger that we cannot address this matter very quickly. It is a two edged sword, one, people are displaced so they cannot grow food, that is basic. Two, they must consume food, therefore they are generating incremental food demand above supply, in both ways demand and supply side of the food economy, this country is sitting on a keg of gunpowder.

How do we juxtapose what is happening now in the middlebelt with the thinking of government to produce food and diversify the economy to make us self-sufficient?

To us in the development sector, it is an exercise in double speaking. In a breath, they talk so much of agriculture going on, so much rice being produce and they talk less of the disasters that are taking place affecting the same production. So it is a serious empirical questions to ask whether with the incremental food production that we have experienced by the news and the incremental loss of food production that we have faced because of the displacement and war going on, I call it war, whether we are actually moving higher or lower, forward or backward in terms of food supply. My sense is that we are producing may be two bags additional per hectare and we are losing four bag per hectare of any particular food item in this country, so added together, it is a loss for this country.

What then do you think can be done to avoid this imminent danger?

One, government should declare as a matter of urgency, a state of emergency in the food sector, not because we have started feeling the food insecurity more than before. There has been food insecurity for a long time in this country and we seemed to have reached equilibrium to live with it. So the state of emergency is not necessarily to face that latent insecurity but to forestall further insecurity from happening. Therefore government must declare a state of emergency which translates into engaging the sources of socio-economic disturbances that are happening in this country now if necessary militarily in order to clear the air for constant food production, otherwise in the next two to three years, the danger will land on us about what is presently happening.

Professor Gbolagade Ayoola is founder and President of Farm and Infrastructure foundation and chairman Voices for Food Security in Nigeria.