Food Insecurity in Africa in Terms of Causes, Effects and Solutions: A Case Study of Nigeria.
1.3.1 Acute:
Sever hunger and malnutrition to the point that lives are threatened immediately (e.g. famine).
1.3.2 Occasional:
When food insecurity occurs due to a specific temporary circumstance.
1.3.3 Chronic:
Ability to meet food needs is consistently or permanently under threat.
2.0 Material and Method
This study was carried out using Nigeria as a case study being the most populous country in the African
continent with estimated 178 million people as of 2014 (Worldometers, 2014) and as such the country is
more vulnerable to food insecurity considering the pressure on the available resources needed to ensure
adequate and sustainable food supply to the populace. The study made use of mostly secondary data
sourced from Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and other past survey works that have been
carried out on similar topics. The key food security indicators such as prevalence of undernourishment,
food inadequacy and numbers of undernourished people in Nigeria from the year 2009 to 2014
according to the latest FAO survey were used for the study and their respective trend were observed to
give the appropriate judgment as to the food security status of Nigeria which is of great concern to the
stakeholders in recent time.
3.0 Results and Discussions
3.1 State of Food Insecurity in Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa and the World At Large.
Table 1 reveals that the latest estimates indicate that 805 million people – about one in nine of the world’s population – were chronically undernourished in 2012–14, with insufficient food for an active and healthy life. This number represents a decline of more than 100 million people over the last decade and of 209 million since 1990–92. The vast majority of hungry people live in developing regions, which saw 42 percent reduction in the prevalence of undernourished people between 1990–92 and 2012–14, despite this progress, about one in eight people, or 13.5 percent of the overall population, remain chronically undernourished in these regions, down from 23.4 percent in 1990–92. The MDG 1c hunger target – of halving, by 2015, the proportion of undernourished people in the developing world – is within reach, but considerable efforts are immediately needed, particularly in countries where progress has stalled. Despite overall progress, large differences remain across developing regions. Eastern and South-Eastern Asia have already achieved the MDG hunger target. The same is true of Latin America and the Caribbean, while the Caucasus and Central Asia are on track to reach MDG 1c by 2015. Latin America and the Caribbean are also on track to reach the more ambitious WFS goal. By contrast, subSaharan Africa and Southern and Western Asia have registered insufficient progress to reach the MDG target. Sub-Saharan Africa has become home to more than a quarter of the world’s undernourished people, owing to an increase of 38 million in the number of hungry people since 1990–92 (SOFI, 2014). In the same vein, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as depicted in Table 2, the prevalence of undernourishment, food security and the number of undernourished people have been on increase in Nigeria since 2009 due to the enumerated causes as itemized below in Nigeria though with the current trend as depicted in this paper, Nigeria still remains one of the few countries with lowest value in terms of prevalence of undernourishment, food insecurity and the number of undernourished
people in the sub-Saharan Africa thus one of the most food secured countries in the region. However, the current trend whereby these indicators of food insecurity keep on rising is worrisome and requires the immediate attention of the concerned authorities through the suggested solutions as listed subsequently in this paper.
