Africa bears heaviest burden of world’s food insecurity – Abbas

The Speaker, House of Representatives, Abbas Tajuddeen, has lamented that the African continent bears the heaviest and largest burden of global food insecurity which is threatening its population.

The speaker was quoted in a statement by his Special Adviser On Media and Publicity, Musa Abdullahi Krishi on Thursday while speaking at the third plenary session of the ongoing 18th Commonwealth Speakers’ and Presiding Officers’ Conference (CSCOP) in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

He said, “While food insecurity is a global crisis, Africa sadly bears the heaviest burden of the global lack of access to food and nutrition. The 2022 Global Report on Food Crises noted that one out of every five Africans go to bed hungry daily while an estimated 140 million out of Africa’s one billion populations face acute food insecurity.

“These observations have been made by various speakers in this session, and there are several causes for this challenge.

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“Suffice it to say that these factors reinforce themselves. For example, armed conflicts disrupt agricultural activities by destroying crops, livestock and preventing farmers from access to the farms.

“The Nigerian case demonstrates this much. The activities of Boko Haram terrorists in the northeastern part of the country greatly contributed to Nigeria’s rising food insecurity as farmers could not have access to their farms following the sacking of several villages in the wake of the attacks which lasted for several years. The terrorist attacks equally impacted negatively on the activities of commercial fishermen within the Lake Chad region.”

According to the Speaker, some of the factors causing the food crisis in Africa  further includes; armed conflicts of different kinds and magnitude; climate change; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; rising population; subsistence farming and crude agricultural practices; lack of access to credit, poor infrastructure, and lack of investment in agri-business, among others.