Nigeria needs to invest in food production to curb hunger —Experts

Experts in different fields in Nigeria have lamented the low investment in production activities, stressing that the continual increase in poverty will lead to social vices and underdevelopment in the country.

The experts, in separate interviews, said there has to be massive investment in agriculture, food security and price regulations to eradicate poverty.

They maintained that the rate of poverty is increasing daily, most especially among children and women, even as the country had earlier been called the poverty capital of the world.

According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) over 17 million Nigerians are hungry and the number could increase to 25 million.

However, the stakeholders faulted the UNICEF statistics as an understatement, stressing that far more than 17 million Nigerians are facing hunger.

A financial expert, Dr Chris Onfonyelu noted that aggression and violence in society are inevitable when poverty is on the rise.

“A hungry man is an angry man. Reduction in population growth and poor health are some of the implications of poverty. The way out is massive investment in agriculture and the need for food security.”

A lecturer from the Department of Mass Communication, AAUA, Dr Toyin Adinlewa reaffirmed that to solve the hunger problem, Nigeria must solve the leadership problem and stop depending on imported products.

“We should not be surprised that the UNICEF statistics is an understatement that 17 million Nigerians are hungry. It is an existing reality. The country has been declared a poverty capital in the world. When people are hungry, there is every probability that they will commit crimes. Unless we begin to work on poverty, we might not be able to curb banditry, kidnapping and all other social vices.

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“We are a consuming nation despite that we have all it takes to produce. We depend so much on bringing finished products to the country. We need to look into producing rather than consuming. If we continue to have leaders who are corrupt and do not care about the masses, this problem may persist,” he hinted.

An economist, Elder Fessy Olabode said, “I believe the figure could be more with the current inflation rate put at about 24/25 percent. The rate of poverty is increasing daily, especially among children and women.

“The way out is to concentrate on aggressive poverty alleviation strategies such as increasing skill acquisition strategies for women and the youths, access to education through reduction of fees across the board, and support SMEs to fund their businesses to be able to employ more hands.”

An aquaculture expert, Paul Eweola, noted that the issue of hunger in the country is getting worse leading to malnutrition, especially among children.

“The ways out of poverty are massive investment in agriculture, food security and price regulation in the market.”

Another technologist from AAUA, Mr Eleko Johnson said Nigeria may remain an underdeveloped country if poverty persists, hence, mass food production should be promoted.

He said, “There is increasing hunger in the country and this calls for mass food production by the government through the Ministry of Agriculture which will lead to a reduction of prices of food and creation of wealth via jobs and businesses, these are what we can do to reduce poverty in Nigeria.”

By Emmanuel Oluwadola

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