Food security is defined as having sufficient food to generate a calorie requirement of about 2200–2300 calories per day for adult females and 2900–3000 calories per day for adult males. Children require a lower calorie level to maintain themselves in adequate health.
In 2022, countries that are highly dependent on food imports have seen a spike in food inflation, as the war in Ukraine and associated supply shortages caused sharp price hikes for wheat and other staples on top of high fuel and transportation costs resulting in a deterioration in food security.
The food security situation in Nigeria has been critical in recent times, with 17 million people estimated to be critically food insecure in 2022. According to October Cadre Harmonise, a government led and UN supported food and nutrition analysis that is carried out twice a year, an estimated 25 million Nigerians are likely to be food insecure between June and August of 2023 (lean season).
The food security situation has over the years been impacted especially by violent conflicts, including the insurgency in the North East; armed banditry in the Northwest; perennial farmer – herder conflicts in the North Central, South West, and increasingly across the country; and separatist agitation in the South East among others.
Other factors contributing to the food insecurity situation include rising inflation, rising poverty, and rising unemployment, engendering and compounding a cost-of-living crisis, with deleterious effects on the conditions of living of citizens, and their ability to access food.
Natural disasters, in particular, the rinsing incidence and frequency of floods, in large part a consequence of climate change impact, continue to affect food production and the availability and affordability of food. For instance, according to the report of the National Emergencies Management Agency [NEMA], the 2022 floods led to the destruction and washing away of over 675,000 hectares of farmland. One can only imagine the extent of the impact of this scale of destruction of farmlands on agricultural activities and food production across the country. Farmers, the majority of whom are small scale farmers, lost not only crops and harvests, but also farm animals, poultry, fishery, and farm implements to the raging floods.
It is important to also factor in the effects of unemployment and poverty rates on the capacities of citizens, and therefore their ability to access food.
In its Global Economic outlook report H1 2023, KPMG, estimated unemployment rate in Nigeria at the end of 2022 at 37.7%, while estimating that this would rise to 40.6% in 2023, and 43% in 2024. KPMG also noted that according to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics [NBS], unemployment had risen from 23.1%in 2018 to 33,3% in 2022, the last year for which NBS has released official unemployment rate.
At the time of the release of the 2020 Q4 unemployment rate by NBS, it had also indicated in its report that, while national unemployment and underemployment rates stood at 33.3%, and 22.8% respectively; youth unemployment and underemployment rates had been, 42.5% and 21% respectively at the end of 2020.
The implication of these figures is that national composite unemployment rate [combined unemployment and underemployment rates] stood at 56.1%, that is about half the population of people in the working age, and who are able to and willing to work.
The corresponding composite unemployment figure youth [aged 15 to 35 years], was 63.5% over the same period; that is more than 3 in 5 youths who were in some condition of unemployment.
With respect to the poverty rate, the World Poverty Clock indicates that 71 million Nigerians are currently living in extreme poverty, the largest number globally; while the NBS had in a press release on 17th November 2022, presenting highlights of the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index [MPI], revealed that 63% [133 million people] – that is about 6 out of every 10 Nigerians – are multidimensionally poor, with 65% [86 million] and 35% [47 million] of the poor living in the North and South of Nigeria respectively.
The NBS also reported that the MPI is higher in rural areas, (72%) than in urban areas (42%); confirming that a much higher proportion of people in living rural areas, compared to those living in urban areas are multidimensionally poor. The implication is that location matters with respect to poverty and unemployment.
Why do these rates [unemployment and poverty rates] matter? They matter because the ability to earn a living impact on one’s ability to access the basic necessities of life, including in particular food; just as being poor affects one’s quality of life and relative capacity to live an enhanced life.
Over 100 million Nigerians are at risk of facing hunger in the coming days and months, if urgent actions are not taken. Continued conflict, climate change, inflation and rising food prices are key drivers of this alarming trend. Food access has been affected by persistent violence in the north-east states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) and armed banditry and kidnapping in states such as Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Benue and Niger and agitation crises and restiveness in the South Eastern States of Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia and Ebonyi.
The United Nations is calling on the Government of Nigeria, the donor community, and public and private stakeholders to urgently commit resources and implement mitigation measures to save lives and prevent a potentially catastrophic food security and nutrition situation. Support for vulnerable families across the country is needed today, not tomorrow.
Another emerging issue that the bank highlighted is the most recent Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates for 2022 which indicate that the World Health Assembly and SDG2 targets for 2030 are moving further out of reach, and the effects of climate change, with impacts on food and nutrition security, are threatening progress on reducing malnutrition.
The global bank in its analysis found that progress toward reducing child stunting, which threatens the health and development of millions of children around the world, has stalled.
The new joint child malnutrition estimates reveal that 148.1 million children under five were stunted in 2022, which is equivalent to one in five children in this age group worldwide.
Over the past five years, global stunting rates have plateaued, drifting further away from the trajectory required to reduce stunting rates by 50 percent by 2030, the updated report said.
World Bank noted that urgent action is crucial to combat all forms of malnutrition, especially climate-smart action. Without this, it said gaps between trajectories and Sustainable Development Goals will continue to widen.
We therefore recommend that strategies that include expanding high-impact interventions, fiscal policies, marketing regulations, and labelling of unhealthy foods should be considered to address under-nutrition and obesity simultaneously.