Unleashing the power of urban agriculture in food security

The focus of the Federal Government today is clearly on the agriculture sector based on the belief that the sector is capable of getting the country out of its current economic doldrums. Although this approach has significant merits, the pang of hunger biting millions of Nigerians, especially people living in urban areas, needs urgent attention before it gets out of hand.

 

President Muhammadu Buhari

Recently, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), an agency of the United Nations, had to appeal to the rest of the world to come to the aid people in the North-East of the country to prevent them from dying as a result of hunger. Even if this was an extreme scenario that arose as a result of devastation wrought on the region by the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents, the situation in the rest of the country is just marginally better as millions of Nigerians can no longer afford to feed themselves.

  

But as Nigeria’s population continues to grow and feeding the population remains a huge challenge for the government to tackle, more attention needs to be given to unexplored alternatives like urban agriculture that can help to feed the people and earn some foreign exchange for the government if well developed. In the contemporary world, farming is no longer seen as an activity functional to rural development alone. It is now considered as an activity that is also beneficial for urban development.

Ironically, the way urban agriculture is practiced in urban areas in Nigeria has always led to conflict situations instead of avenues for growth. Urban agriculture in Nigeria is still at the subsistence level and has failed to evolve to the level seen in other parts of the world like India, Morocco, Netherlands or the US. The notion of urban farming in Nigeria is still limited to growing food within city limits. Internationally, the definition of urban farming also includes peri-urban areas or ‘the entire area of land in which a city’s influence comes to bear daily and directly on its population,’ according to UNDP.

Properly understood and managed, urban agriculture should never give rise to conflict as witnessed in the case of a Lagos couple who beat their neighbour to death over a chicken roost recently. The couple, Segun and Sola Irein, who owned the roost, allegedly beat Idowu Solaja to death in February when he complained to the couple that he was being disturbed by the chickens. It was also reported that Segun who was initially rearing pigs was forced to abandon the business after a series of complaints by the deceased.

Mr. Tao Adeleke, an agricultural expert, contends that the couple committed a needless crime because the kind of farming they engaged in is not suited for urban areas. “Urban agriculture,” he says, “is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around an urban area. It can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agro-forestry, and horticulture in peri-urban areas.”  Adeleke believes that governments at all levels in Nigeria must begin to consciously put in place structures and legislation for the practice of urban agriculture in order to bring new life to urban areas and provide a driving force for community development.

Audu Ogbeh, Agric Minister

“The government must mobilize the urban poor to engage in urban agriculture not just to solve the problem of hunger but to also get the unemployed busy in productive ventures. Lower and mid-level government officials, school teachers and unemployed people should also be encouraged to get involved in agriculture. Urban agriculture may take place in locations on land away from the residence or on public land such as parks, conservation areas, along roads, streams and railways and semi-public land such as schoolyards, grounds of schools and hospitals.”

According to the FAO, “the recent world food price crisis has rendered the importance of understanding and confronting the causes of food insecurity of the urban poor even more apparent. Poor urban dwellers, being largely net food buyers and depending mostly on markets for their food supplies, are particularly vulnerable to adverse food price shocks, and are consistently the group in society that suffers most from higher food prices. Urban agriculture is one of the solutions that are perceived globally to meet the demand of food of urban population.”