Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh |
My dear readers; permit me to digress from
continuation of my last week article on recognition of 21st Century
Inventors to discuss on “World Food Day celebration, Gate Keepers Report and their
implications to Food Security in Nigeria”. This topic is apt at the moment to
remind my fellow citizens of the impending food insecurity threat to our dear
nation, Nigeria.
Tuesday, 16th October 2018 was a World Food
day globally celebrated on annual basis in many countries to remind nations on
the devastating effects of hunger, poverty and squalor. Nigeria joined other
nations to mark the day at the National Agricultural Show Complex, Km 28, Abuja
– Keffi Express way, Nasarawa State. National Agricultural Foundation of
Nigeria (NAFN), a forerunner NGO has annually been organizing the event in
Nigeria in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development (FMARD).
World
Food Day (WFD) provides opportunity for each country to assemble its
stakeholders for conferences, symposium, and exhibitions as well as examines the
different strategies adopted to reduce hunger and poverty. WFD is globally celebrated
every year on 16 October in honor of the date of the founding of the Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which was formally established
in 1945. The day is celebrated widely by many other organizations concerned
with food security, including the World Food Program and the International Fund
for Agricultural Development.
FAO’s Member Countries at the Organization’s 20th
General Conference established WFD in November 1979. The Hungarian Delegation,
led by the former Hungarian Minister of Agriculture and Food Dr. Pál Romány,
played an active role at the 20th Session of the FAO Conference and suggested
the idea of celebrating the WFD worldwide. It has since been observed every
year in more than 150 countries, raising awareness on the critical issues
behind poverty and hunger.The occasion is also used to showcase innovations and
inventions made by researchers, technicians and craftsmen on the improvement of
agricultural productivity.
Two years after the first WFD, the event was assigned
a“theme” in 1981 and since then, “theme” was annually assigned to each WFD. The
theme highlights common areas of concerns needing attention and action of policy
makers, investors and the general public, Examples, the theme of WFD of 2017
was “Change the future of migration. Invest in food security and rural
development” while that of 2016 was “Climate change: Climate is changing, Food
and agriculture must too”.The theme of World Food Day 2015 was “Social
Protection and Agriculture: Breaking the Cycle of Rural Poverty” and so on.
This year’s(2018) theme was “Our Actions are our Future. A Zero Hunger by the
year 2030 is possible”This is a smart way of sensitizing the World to work
towards eradicating hunger. The key words of 2018 theme “achievement of zero
hunger” gingered every stakeholder at the venue of the celebration on that day.
According to FAO, “Zero hunger means working together to ensure everyone,
everywhere, has access to the safe, healthy and nutritious food they need. To
achieve it, we must adopt a more sustainable lifestyle, work with others, share
our knowledge and be willing to help change the world – for the better”. FAO
further reminded the audience,“After a period of decline, world hunger is on
the rise again”. According to the latest FAO 2018 State of Food Security and
Nutrition in the World report, “Today, over 820 million people are suffering
chronic undernourishment, Conflict, extreme weather events linked to climate
change, economic slowdown and rapidly increasing overweight and obesity levels
are reversing progress made in the fight against hunger and malnutrition”.Now
is the time to get back on track. The world can achieve Zero Hunger if we join
forces across nations, continents, sectors and professions. Today, 70 percent
of the world's poor live in rural areas where people’s lives depend wholly on
agriculture, fisheries or forestry. “That’s why Zero hunger calls for a
transformation of rural economy” as stated by FAO.
In Nigeria, the 2018 World Food Day was
celebrated with chain of events involving the stakeholders. The events included
a 5km road-walk; a symposium on Zero Hunger; a book/photo exhibition, National
Agricultural Show and Public presentation of 2018 Agricultural Performance
Survey (APS) Report. The symposium was done on October 12, which was titled the
same as the 2018 WFD theme: “Our Actions are Our Future: A Zero Hunger World by
2030 is Possible”.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development,
Senator Heineken Lokpobiri was the special guest of honor at the event. He
reaffirmed the federal government commitment to achieve Zero Hunger within the
next few years. The Nation, a
national newspaper quoted the Minister “In the next 12 years, Nigeria will join
the league of nations who would be able to feed the world” – and make zero
hunger.While we must join the Minister to drum up the music of hopes as we move
into the future, we may however, pause and ask how herculean the task to end
hunger in Nigeria? What is the performance of agriculture in the current 2018
wet season? The last question is answered by the Agricultural Performance
Report (APS), which was presented to the public as part of 2018 World Food Day
celebration in Nigeria. The Minister of FMARD, Chief Audu Ogbeh who was
represented by the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Abdulkadir Muazu, officially
performed the public presentation of the APS.
APS is
one of the national mandates of National Agricultural Extension and Research
Liaison Services (NAERLS). NAERLS) is under the auspices of two organizations -
FMARD and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria (ABU). In NAERLS and two other ABU based
National Agricultural Research Institutes; IAR and NAPRI, there isa symbiotic
relationship between FMARD and ABU, which brings out the best out of NAERLS.
Thus, one hand, NAERLS personnel have the opportunity to interface with both
undergraduate and postgraduate students of ABU in teaching and research
activities. On the hand, the same personnel are involved in agricultural
extension activities thereby interfacing with field staff of the 37 ADPs across
the nation. Consequently, there is no conflict of interests between the two
supervisory bodies of NAERLS as they are both achieving their goals. While
FMARD is achieving agricultural extension policy and direction through NAERLS,
ABU uses both the human resources and infrastructure of NAERLS for teaching,
learning and community services. NAERLS being extension service provider has
distinctive position among the National Agricultural Research Institutes in the
country.
Thus, NAERLS carries out numerous annual activities with APS one of
them. The objectives of the 2018 APSare crops performance assessment during wet
season; crops production forecasts; identification of constraints to increased
agricultural productivity and effective extension delivery service. Another
objective of APS is to provide feed backs on field situation and farmers’ problems
needing research, and attention of policy makers for improved research and
policy performance. The methodology of the APS involved the use of
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique. This includes questionnaire/checklists
administration, farm visits/observations, interviews with farmers and
Ministry/ADP officials /reports of technology review meetings.A total of Twenty
multi-disciplinary teams of three scientists each constituting 60 scientists
conducted the survey across the 36 States,
Federal establishments and Federal
Capital Territory.In each state, two communities were selected from two LGAs in
two selected agricultural zones for field evaluation. From each community, five
farmers were interviewed in addition to focused group discussions held at every
site. In all, interactions were held with over 1,000 individual farmers and 74
different farmers groups. Data capture
from the farmers was done electronically using Android Tablets. Extensive discussions were also held with the ADP
staff, ministry officials and staff of other relevant agencies. Final wrap-up
sessions to validate the data generated and findings were held at the end of the
exercise with officials of the State ADP and Ministry of Agriculture.
The 2018
APS also captured information on Agricultural Project Interventions at the
level of the Local Government Areas through states’ ministries of Local
Government across the nation. Major findings of the 2018 APS will be discussed
next week.
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