Advocacy Corner

Agriculture as a Panacea to Food Security and Economic Development. 

Do you know that about 842million people in the world go to bed hungry, i.e. one out f every eight people, (FAO, 2013). Asia has the highest percentage, followed by Africa. Report on Africa Multiple Indicator Scorecard on hunger and Food Security revealed that Nigeria has the highest number of hungry people in Africa with a total 12.1 million. Paradoxically, Nigeria has great potentials for agriculture to feed her population; and this include huge agricultural land mass, abundant water resources, good soils, human resources and huge market of over 171 million population, as well as extensive regional market. Agriculture is the foundation for food security and development; a food secured nation attains more rapid development than that which is food insecure.

The latter situation is noted to bring about chaos, insecurity, anger and complete destruction of lives and properties. Quoting Dr. Jacques Diouf, former DG FAO, at the Africa Food Security Summit in Abuja, 2006.

                “No civilization, no continent, no self-respecting country can allow the

            food security of its people, to be ensured or decided by others; from the depths

            of history, great empires and affluent kingdoms have come and gone. But, if we

            look closely at what contributed to their demise, we would often see that the

           main cause was the failure to meet the basic needs of the people in particular food".

 

I wish to encourage the youths to try agriculture as business and reduce their crave for white collar job which is scarce. The Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the Federal

Government emphasizes agriculture as business and not development programme. This is to draw more people into the sector as a sustainable means of livelihood. I therefore invite you to join me on the farm; taking advantage of the wide range of choice opportunities on crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture as well as other downstream activities of agriculture.

I appeal to my friends on this platform to begin to eat what we grow and grow what we eat; in doing this, we will keep the commodity supply chain strong; we will empower our farmers more, reduce export of jobs and improve our economy. I confess that I eat only Nigerian rice and cassava bread; as a confirmation of my dogged commitment and patriotism to the socio-economic development of my dear country and enjoin you to come with me.

Write ups on advocacy are welcome from the general public on this blog. Get your input to us through this email moadetunji@yahoo.com and we assure you it will be posted on the blog

Thanks

M. O Adetunji