Africa bears heaviest burden of global food insecurity — Abbas

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon. Tajudeen Abbas denounced on Thursday that the burden of food insecurity in the world is heaviest on Africa.

Abbas, who made this known while delivering a speech at the third plenary session of the ongoing 18th Conference of Commonwealth Presidents and Presidents (CSCOP) in Yaoundé, Cameroon, however noted that the continent's parliaments could address some of the issues driving the food crisis.

The President's address was titled: "Addressing Africa's Food Security Challenges by Promoting Investment in Agriculture".

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“While food insecurity is a global crisis, Africa unfortunately bears the heaviest burden of the global lack of access to food and nutrition.

"The Global Report on Food Crises 2022 noted that one in five Africans go to bed hungry every day, while an estimated 140 million of Africa's one billion people face acute food insecurity.

“These observations have been made by various speakers during this session, and there are several causes for this challenge,” Abbas said while addressing other parliament leaders.

According to the President, some of the factors driving the food crisis in Africa are armed conflicts of different types and scales; climate change; impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; increase of the population; subsistence farming and crude farming practices; lack of access to credit, poor infrastructure and lack of investment in agribusiness, among others.

Abbas noted: "Suffice it to say that these factors reinforce each other. For example, armed conflicts disrupt agricultural activities by destroying crops, livestock and preventing farmers from accessing farms.

"The Nigerian case demonstrates this well. The activities of Boko Haram terrorists in the northeast of the country have contributed greatly to the rise of food insecurity in Nigeria, as farmers have been unable to access their farms following the ransacking of several villages following the attacks that lasted for several years.

"The terrorist attacks have also had a negative impact on the activities of commercial fishermen in the Lake Chad region."

The President also noted that on the other hand, the recurring conflicts between herders and farmers in Nigeria are “a fallout from the impact of climate change which has brought in its wake, drought and extreme weather conditions in the northern part of the country, which has compelled herders to move their herd to other parts of the country for grazing.”

He further noted that the movement of herds “often destroys farmland and crops, triggering retaliatory action by farmers who, in turn, slaughter herders’ livestock,” noting that “both of these actions further aggravate the food crisis as livestock and crops are destroyed.”

The President backed up his remarks with the fact that extreme weather conditions caused by climate change and global warming pose serious threats to agricultural production and increase food insecurity on the continent.

He said: “Our food insecurity is also exacerbated by poor infrastructure on the continent, which prevents farmers from storing their produce, processing it and moving it to urban centers for a better price.

“Linked to the above is the lack of investment in agribusiness, which is the result of a number of factors including poor infrastructure, ill-conceived policies, lack of access to land, high cost of doing business and many more. Agricultural tools and other incentives are beyond the reach of most farmers in our continent who largely operate at a subsistence level.”

Abbas, however, emphasized that the legislature is very important in addressing the devastating scourge of food insecurity in Africa, through the three cardinal functions of legislation, oversight and representation. “Many challenges related to food insecurity can be addressed with the right legislative framework and actions,” he said.

Through legislation, the President said, parliaments can remove the bottlenecks that dampen investment in agribusiness on the African continent. He also said that with legislation, we can make the operating environment more conducive to attract investors to the sector and ensure their investments are protected.

The President said, “We must enact laws that provide access to land, credit and other incentives that make investing in agribusiness attractive and rewarding.

"We can also reduce food losses with the necessary legislative framework that promotes climate-resilient agricultural production. Greenhouse agriculture can help...