Nigeria’s inclusion among 27 countries that are on the frontline of impending COVID-19-driven food crisis, in a joint report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP), has reiterated the need for more strategic approach and determination to minimise projected deficits in the country’s food production.
The report last week identified countries where the pandemic’s “knock-on effects aggravate pre-existing drivers of hunger”. With Nigeria on the list are – Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Liberia, Mali, Niger Republic, and Zimbabwe to mention a few.
The joint analysis by both organisations warns that these “hotspot countries” are at high risk of – and in some cases are already seeing – significant food security deteriorations in the coming months, including rising numbers of people pushed into acute hunger.
“It is essential that this next planting season works. I don’t have words for my concern, if we don’t get the inputs in time into the hands of the farmers, dealing with rain-fed agricultural crops,” said Andrew Nevin, chief economist at PWC West Africa during a webinar session last month. “There is nothing worse for this country than if we have a food crisis or famine after the next harvest,” he said.
Stakeholders across the agricultural value chain have echoed Nevin’s views, and the warning by both FAO and WFP is reinforcing the need for the country to fix systemic issues that predated COVID-19, and worsening food security in the country following the pandemic.
Qu Dongyu, FAO director-general, had noted that Nigeria, along with the other countries were already grappling with high levels of food insecurity and acute hunger even before COVID-19, due to pre-existing shocks and stressors such as economic crises, instability and insecurity, climate extremes, and, plant pests and animal diseases.
“Now they are on the frontline and bearing the brunt of COVID-19’s disruptive effects on food systems, which are fuelling a hunger crisis within a health crisis,” he said, adding: “We must not think of this as a risk that will emerge sometime down the line. We cannot treat this as tomorrow’s problem. We need to do more to safeguard both food systems and our most vulnerable populations – right now.”
Samuel Ogallah, senior climate specialist for Africa, Solidaridad, had suggested “there is an urgent need for institutional review of policies and realignment.”
According to Ogallah, in the wake of COVID-19, it has exposed how Nigeria’s policies are not aligned at the Federal down through the State level to the Local Government level.
“Some of the policies are made at the federal level, but where are the farmers based? The farmers are based in the grassroots at the local government level; so, the trickling down of those policies has become a challenge. There is urgent need, in the wake of Covid-19, for policy realignment,” he said.
The FAO-WFP report also notes four ways COVID-19 is pushing up acute food insecurity. The first is a drop in employment and wages, which imply people have less money to spend on household food. At the same time, food prices are up in many hotspot countries, posing a barrier to food access.
The second pertains to a range of disruptions associated with necessary pandemic and health countermeasures, which are also having significant – and increasing – impacts on food production and supply.
The third is that plummeting government revenues mean that critical safety nets such as social protection and school feeding programmes are underfunded and unable to respond to growing needs.
Lastly, the FAO and WFP’s analysis suggests the pandemic may contribute to political instability as well as fuelling conflict, for example between communities over natural resources like water or grazing land or migration routes, which further disrupts agricultural production and markets.
Responding to the challenges requires scaled-up urgent action, according to FAO. Critical agricultural seasons, livestock movements for pasture and water, food harvesting, processing and storage are not activities that can be put on hold.
“If we act now and at scale, we can keep as many people as possible producing food, safeguard their livelihoods and reduce their need for humanitarian food assistance, while laying the foundations for a resilient recovery,” said FAO’s Dongyu, adding: “It is not too late to prevent the worst hunger crisis in generations.”
