The federal government has been advised to take more drastic steps in addressing national security threats including terrorism, social unrest, banditry, and kidnapping, to achieve food security.
At a training session on the food balance sheet for National Bureau of Statistics employees, Mr. Ayo Salam, managing director of Coinmac International Inc., made this claim in a press conference.
The government must exert sufficient effort to put an end to insecurity in Nigeria, Salam continued.
“The North West and the North Central States of Nigeria are facing high levels of insecurity due to a combination of long-running armed conflict and violence, disrupted livelihoods, reduced market access, localized food production shortfall and the impacts of COVID-19 on food supply chains”, he noted.
He disclosed that the insecurity situation in the country is affecting food production in Nigeria.
“This course will improve the knowledge of the participants about the food balance sheet (FBS). This is a tool that depicts the overall trend in national food supply and demand and exposes any food deficits that may necessitate imports.”
“It is useful in carrying out an appraisal to establish the food situation in any country through estimations and projections. It will expose the participants to methodology regarding the preparation of food balance sheets. It will aid in analyzing national production, availability and consumption of various food items in Nigeria at the individual, household and national levels”.
The statistician-general of the federation, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, said, “The issue of Food and Agriculture is very critical to the survival and growth of a country like Nigeria. The agricultural sector accounts for over 25 percent of the total GDP, with more than 60 percent of our labour force engaged in one form of agricultural activity; be it crop production, livestock, fisheries, poultry or forestry, or even the transportation or trading of agricultural products.
“This training is one of the ways by which we are building the technical capability of Staff of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and indeed that of the National Statistical System in Nigeria, to meet up with the high demand for reliable and timely statistics in Nigeria.”