Nigeria Worst Hit by Food Insecurity -UN
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May 13, 2022
THE United Nations (UN) has identified Nigeria as one of the nations with the highest food insecurity, owing to continuous crises and other factors.
The UN revealed this in its Global Report on Food Crisis, which was recently published jointly by its Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP), and the European Union (EU), warning that the situation could worsen due to the impact of Ukraine’s ongoing war on the global food value chain.
Concerning the global food crisis, the UN stated that the number of people who cannot afford to eat enough to survive reached an all-time high in 2021, and that it might reach “appalling” new heights as global food systems struggle with rising commodity inflation.
According to the agency, nearly 193 million people in 53 countries suffered acute food insecurity in 2021, due to a “toxic triple combination” of conflict, weather extremes, and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
It explained that the total number of people without adequate daily meals increased by 40 million in 2021, confirming a “worrisome trend” of yearly increases over several years.
The report read in part: “Today if more is not done to support rural communities, the scale of the devastation in terms of hunger and lost livelihoods will be appalling. Urgent humanitarian action is needed on a massive scale to prevent that from happening.” Furthermore, the report indicated that in eight African countries, extreme weather was the main driver of acute food insecurity for 23.5 million people. It called for greater investment in agriculture and appealed for $1.5 billion to help farmers in risk-prone regions with the upcoming planting season to stabilise and increase local food production.
He noted that several countries battling major food crises obtained almost all of their wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine in 2021, saying urgent humanitarian action was needed on a massive scale to prevent acute hunger in those regions.
Source: tribuneonlineng.com
