Nigeria now 2nd among countries facing food insecurity in the world

Nigeria has further climbed up the ladder, moving from fourth to second among countries with the highest number of people battling with food insecurity in the world, according to a 2024 Global Report on Food Crises.

The report which accounts for 59 countries places Congo DR as the country having the highest number of people facing food insecurity in the world at 25.8 million for a nation with less than 100 million population.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with over 220 million people has more than 24 million people who are food insecure and plunged into hunger.

Other countries among the top five nations that are faced with food insecurity includes: Sudan, Afghanistan and Ethiopia with 20.29, 19.9 and 19.7 million citizens respectively.

The GRFC highlighted conflict and insecurity, economic shocks and extreme weather conditions as major drivers of food insecurity, noting that in 2023, almost 282 million people of 59 countries experienced high levels of acute food insecurity requiring urgent interventions.

“A food crisis is a situation where acute food insecurity requires urgent action to protect and save lives and livelihoods at local or national levels and exceeds the local resources and capacities to respond,” the report said.

As of 2016, Nigeria was fourth among countries with the highest number of people facing food insecurity but rose to second in 2017. It however sharply fell to eight positions in 2018.

Fast forward to 2019, Africa’s largest economy dropped again to ninth but lost steam as it rose to sixth in 2020, fifth in 2021 and fourth in 2022 before hitting the second spot in 2023.

“The drivers of food crises are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. Acute food insecurity is rarely driven by a single shock or hazard, but rather by the interaction between shocks and underlying poverty, structural weaknesses and other vulnerability factors,” the report stated.

According to the report, of the 59 countries analysed, 21 of them are facing food insecurity due to economic shocks buoyed by structural weaknesses; 20 of the cases were due to conflict and insecurity while 18 were on account of extreme weather conditions.

Nigeria is presently contending with severe food shortages as food producing regions are plagued with insecurity challenges which have forced farmers off their farms in search for other jobs.

Economic reforms by the government over a year ago – removal of petrol subsidy and devaluation of the naira — have sent prices of the roof, squeezing the already squeezed Nigerians.

These fiscal imbalances have seen the country’s headline inflation surged to 34.19 percent while food prices have continued to rise, leaving many with nothing to eat.

The government, though has rolled out measures to douse the pains of these reforms. However the palliative measures are yet to cool the prices of staples already up in the market.