North East nutrition condition will worsen —FAO

THE Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has said that nutrition condition of children in the northeast Nigeria will worsen if there are no workable plans to up scale the prospect of the Internally Displaced Persons ( IDPs)  restarting life through agricultural livelihoods.

The Director of Emergency and Rehabilitation, Dominique Burgeon if FAO, during a recent visit to FAO project site in Fariya, Borno state observed that with more than 80 percent of region’s  rural population depending on crop or livestock farming, investing in agriculture now is critical to tackling food insecurity and ensuring improvement on the nutrition condition of the people.

“We are approaching a critical period in the agricultural calendar. This is our main opportunity to tackle these truly staggering levels of food insecurity by helping at-risk families to produce their own food. The rainy season begins in May-June. Farmers need to have seeds, fertilizers and tools in their hands by then so they can plant. If they miss this season, humanitarian costs are just going to keep rising and rising into 2018. Nutrition outcomes will worsen and this will affect today’s children for the rest of their lives,” said Burgeon.

FAO delegation’s recent visit to Borno State was to see the impact of conflict and violence on civilian populations and the response by national and local authorities and international organizations.

It will be recalled that the United Nations agency had initiated some intervention projects to cushion the effects of insurgency on the IDPS, one of such projects is the ongoing “Restoring Agricultural Livelihoods of IDPs, Returnees and Vulnerable Host Families in North East Nigeria project” through which FAO is reaching 174 400 people with vegetable seeds and irrigation support for the dry season.

Part of the plans already in place for the region according to the statement issued by the organisation,  is “ to considerably scale up its interventions in the region to ensure that those who return to farms receive the support they need to plant in time and produce food to sustain themselves and their families”

“FAO is supporting 2,000 farmers in Fariya, a village in Jere Local government, just a few kilometers outside of Maiduguri town. With funding from the Governments of Belgium, Ireland and Japan, the intervention aims to enhance the self-sufficiency of returnees and vulnerable host families, women and youths through training and critical inputs including seedlings, water pumps and fertilizer for vegetable production” said the statement.