Nigeria’s ranking on the global hunger index has been termed as ‘serious’, fresh data from the 2022 Global Hunger Index annual report published by Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe has shown.
According to the report from the German-based institution, Nigeria ranks 103rd among 121 countries. The country also has a hunger level that is ‘serious’ with a global hunger index of 27.3 out of 100 point scale.
Findings showed the global hunger index used metrics such as undernourishment, child wasting, child stunting, and child mortality.
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Undernourishment is the share of the population with insufficient caloric intake, child wasting is the share of children under five that have low weight compared to their height reflecting acute undernutrition while child stunting is the share of children under five who have low height for their age reflecting chronic undernutrition, and child mortality is the share of children that die before their fifth birthday.
In the last eight years, Dataphyte’s research showed Nigeria’s global hunger index has been serious despite the decrease in the global hunger index in 2021 and 2022, the global hunger index still remains serious.
The World food program revealed that in 2021, 7 out of 10 Nigerians did not have food to eat, which reflects the growing food insecurity that has been prevalent in Africa’s biggest economy.
Sources say Nigeria’s food insecurity has been attributed to the growing insecurity, rising prices of foods, the Russia- Ukraine war which has affected the importation of food items across the globe, and climate change occasioned by heavy rainfall leading to floods in some parts of the country.
The growing rate of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping have forced farmers to flee the farms.
Flood has also increased the inability of plants to absorb essential nutrients necessary for proper growth and leads to the erosion or loss of the nutritional status of crops planted which results in acute food insecurity, unavailability of food, and malnutrition. In cases where flash floods occurred, livestock is also displaced or affected with diseases due to exposure to flood water, this also includes fish in water bodies or ponds.
Crops need water and not heavy rainfall to grow, too much rain destroys farmlands, damages crops, and destroys stored agricultural products. The scarcity of agricultural products evidently affects food supply and food availability leading to food insecurity and hunger.
With the prediction of Nigeria becoming the world’s 3rd most populous country by 2050, there is a need for Nigeria to address food security by managing the aftermath of the flood as citizens have started to report increases in food prices due to disruptions in supply chain and limited supply of some food items mainly caused by the recent flooding in Nigeria which has claimed over 600 lives and displaced over 1.4 million people and destroyed 569,000 hectares of farmland ahead of the October harvest.
Experts say Nigeria currently needs reform in its agricultural sector, especially at the local level since most of the consumed agricultural products are produced by peasant farmers.
They noted that the reform should be in form of sensitisation of farmers, measures to control flooding and boost agricultural science and technology for the production, storage, and distribution of farm produce. The rising insecurity should also be curbed so as to give farmers the free will to work and plant on their farms.
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