There is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone, yet 815 million people go hungry.
To feed another two billion people in 2050, food production will need to increase by 50 percent globally. Food security is a complex condition requiring a holistic approach to all forms of malnutrition, the productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, resilience of food production systems and the sustainable use of biodiversity and genetic resources.
After steadily declining for over a decade, global hunger appears to be on the rise, affecting 11 percent of the global population.
In addition to an increase in the proportion of the world’s population that suffers from chronic hunger (prevalence of undernourishment), the number of undernourished people on the planet has also increased to 815 million, up from 777 million in 2015.
This sobering news comes in a year in which famine struck in parts of South Sudan for several months in 2017 and food insecurity situations at risk of turning into famines were identified in other conflict-affected countries, namely Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen.
The food security situation visibly worsened in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, South Eastern and Western Asia. This was most notable in situations of conflict, in particular where the food security impacts of conflict were compounded by droughts of floods, linked in part to El Niño phenomenon and climate-related shocks.
Over the past 10 years, the number of violent conflicts around the world has increased significantly, in particular in countries already facing food insecurity, hitting rural communities the hardest and having a negative impact on food production and availability.
The situation has also deteriorated in some peaceful settings, particularly those affected by economic slowdowns. A number of countries heavily dependent on commodity exports have experienced dramatically reduced export and fiscal revenues in recent years. Thus food availability has been affected through reduced import capacity while access to food has deteriorated in part due to reduced fiscal potential to protect poor households against rising domestic food prices.
The worrisome trend in undernourishment is, however, not yet reflected in nutritional outcomes. Evidence on various forms of malnutrition points to continuous decreases in the prevalence of stunting among children, as reflected in global and regional averages.
Nevertheless, stunting still affects almost one in four children under the age of five years, increasing their risk of impaired cognitive ability, weakened performance at school, and dying from infections.
Overweight among children under five is becoming more of a problem in most regions, while adult obesity continues to rise in all regions. Multiple forms of malnutrition therefore coexist, with countries experiencing simultaneously high rates of child undernutrition and adult obesity.
Undernutrition, overweight and their associated non-communicable diseases now coexist in many regions, countries and even households. Six nutrition indicators – three that form part of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) monitoring framework, and three that refer to global nutrition targets agreed by the World Health Assembly, are described below to better understand the multiple burden of malnutrition, which affects all regions in the world.
As difficult as it might be to make sense of a situation in which food security is under threat globally but child undernutrition (stunting) is falling and adult obesity is rising, there are a number of possible explanations.
Food security is only one determinant of nutritional outcomes, especially for children. Other factors include: women’s educational level; resources allocated to national policies and programmes for maternal, infant and young child nutrition; access to clean water, basic sanitation and quality health services; lifestyle; food environment; and culture.
Particularly in high- and upper-middle income countries, food insecurity and obesity often co-exist – even in the same household. When resources for food become scarce, and people’s means to access nutritious food diminish, they often rely on less-healthy, more energy-dense food choices that can lead to overweight and obesity.
Additionally, food insecurity and poor nutrition during pregnancy and childhood are associated with metabolic adaptations that increase the risk of obesity and associated non-communicable chronic diseases in adulthood.
Last but not least, changes in dietary patterns and food systems have led to increasing consumption of highly processed foods in many countries. Readily available and accessible, these products are often high in fat, sugar and salt and signal a shift away from traditional diets, further explaining the coexistence of multiple forms of malnutrition within the same communities and even households.
The major threats to food supply in Nigeria are floods and rampaging herdsmen.
Recently, Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, in the midst of the incessant rainfall in the state, raised the alarm of impending food scarcity in the country, going by the devastation caused by the flood on farmlands in 21 out of the 23 local government areas of the state. Ortom, who is one of the biggest farmers in the state, lost over 5,000 hectares of rice and yam farms to the flood at his country home in Guma Local Government Area. Aside hundreds of homes in some communities that were submerged by the flood, the aftermath of the downpour has shown that farmers in the state are the worst hit. About 10,000 farmers had their crops washed away, translating to almost 300,000 hectares of farm lands that were completely submerged and damaged.
The state chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria, (AFAN), Mr Aondoana Hembe, revealed that rice, maize, yam and soya beans farmers, who are mostly into mechanised farming, recorded high level of loss.
According to him, “The devastating effect is unimaginable because it affected 21 local government areas of the state,” he affirmed, expatiating further that “over 90,000 farmers were affected, as their crops were completely buried in the water.
On April 25, Nimbo, an agrarian and border community in Enugu State, was attacked by herdsmen, leaving dozens of farmers killed and many others seriously injured. It was learnt that farmers in the community are yet to recover from the trauma.
Dr. Otaha Jacob from the University of Jos, Plateau State, believes that the solution to the problem is to ensure peace between the herdsmen and farmers.
“Other ways of feeding cows have to be devised. There should be ranches. Statistics have shown that in Nigeria, only 141 grazing reserves were gazetted with less than 20 equipped with resources for pastoralists,” he said.
Other agriculture experts believe that if the proposed National Grazing Route and Reserve Commission is established to engender acquisition and management of lands across Nigeria’s 36 states to provide pastures for cattle, farmers will be able to produce what the country can eat and export.
and then