Evaluation of Food Security in Nigeria

Food is life and hardly can anyone survive without it (Peter and Emmanuel, 2012). It is a necessity of life and the need for food sit atop the hierarchy of need without which a healthy living will be a mirage (Ifeoma and Agwu, 2014). Therefore, making food available and accessible is a major duty any government own its citizens. Nigeria as a nation is then duty bound to ensure that food availability and accessibility is secured for its teeming population. Food security can only be regarded to be in existence if citizens have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and healthy food (Ifeoma and Agwu, 2014). Food must not only be seen to be available; it must be accessible as well. The importance of access to food and availability has been spotlighted by the second Sustainability Development Goal (SDG) aimed at achieving zero hunger and food security by the year 2030 (Nkechi, 2021). For Nigeria, achieving food security is still a major challenge and even worse for those in rural areas of the country (Ifeoma and Agwu, 2014). According to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), about 9.2 million people in Nigeria faced a worse level of food insecurity between March and May 2021. It has also been projected that the figure may continue to rise unless those issues contributing to the food security are tackled headlong (FAO, 2021 cited in AA, 2021). The following issues have been identified as the contributing factors to the problem of food security in Nigeria:

• Increase in violence occasioned by insurgency in the northern part of the country and forced displacement from the agricultural active areas.
• Trade disruptions and an economic decline which is linked to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Inability to provide agricultural inputs to most farmers in time at the beginning of planting season.
• Climate change induced drought.

(FAO, 2021)

• Poor implementation of various agricultural policies to drive increased food security (Peter and Emmanuel, 2012).
• Lack of basic social amenities and poor infrastructure in the rural farming areas.

There is still a lot of gaps to fill with respect to approaches at addressing food security challenge in Nigeria (Akinyele, 2009). A lot of funds have been deployed to improve food security in Nigeria without commiserate success (Akinyele, 2009). It is, therefore, important to reassess the situation and see what can be done practically that will be bring desired result to achieve zero hunger and food security in the country.