Hunger, Food Inflation, and Nigeria's Security Problem
Food is life; it sustains every living organism. However, its essence to our survival doesn’t guarantee its accessibility. Despite the quantum improvement and technological advancement we have made in the past 100 years especially in the area of agriculture and food production, a very large number of people are still finding it hard to afford or access food items. As Action Against Hunger puts it, “as many as 811 million people still go hungry. After a steady decline for a decade, world hunger is on the rise, affecting 9.9 per cent of people globally”.1
The inadequate access to food items does not occur in a vacuum but rather caused by several factors such as poverty, stagnated or low income, weakened currency, climate change and natural disasters, political instability and conflicts, pandemic, unemployment, inflation, among others. However, in this piece, I will be focusing more on insecurity problem in Nigeria and how it contributes to food inflation and hunger.
Her inability to protect
Nigeria has never been one of the most secure countries in the world. It has always been faced with different kinds of violent conflicts ranging from ethnoreligious conflicts, electoral violence, secessions, terrorism, to state-sanctioned violence. The emergence of Boko Haram in 2009 in the north-eastern part of the country became a major development in Nigeria’s security problem. The Boko Haram insurgency alone is directly and indirectly responsible for the death of over 350,000 people, the displacement of 3 million people in the Lack Chad Basin with about 310,000 Nigerians taking refuge in Chad, Cameroon, and Niger.2
Apart from insurgency, ethnoreligious conflicts, electoral violence, and farmer-herder conflicts, in recent years, Nigeria has been experiencing an increasing rate of kidnapping and banditry especially in the Northwest, Northeast, and Northcentral as well as an increasing rate of violent separatist agitation in the Southeast. The implication of all these is that thousands of people are being killed and livelihoods are being lost. In the first quarter of 2021, SBM Intelligence stated that media reported killings in Nigeria was at least 2,861; in the second quarter, there were 3,133 media reported killings; and in the third quarter, 2,287 media reported killings. These killings include attacks from Boko Haram, militia herdsmen, abduction, gang clash and bandits.3
The problem with fighting insecurity in Nigeria is that the security structure is not strong enough to resolve insecurity. The police force is in shambles and ineffectual and the military has been spread too thin across various flashpoints in the country. The security apparatus is so bad that there are clamours, even from the government, for Nigerians to defend themselves. For instance, the Defence Minister was quoted saying, “I don’t know why people are running away from minor, minor, minor things like that [referring to bandits]. They should stand. Let these people [bandits] know that even the villagers have the competence and capability to defend themselves.”4 It is a shame that the Minister of Defence could be saying such. I don’t know how the minister expects ordinary citizens to defend themselves against gunmen armed with assault rifles. What is even more absurd is calling armed bandits “minor things”.
Her inability to feed
An average Nigerian assesses the level of hunger in the country mostly based on hearsay or make a deduction from the increasing prices of food items. However, expressing the level of hunger in numbers and making comparisons can give us a better insight into what we are dealing with.
The fact is people are facing hunger in Nigeria. World Bank data shows the prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Nigeria increased from 36.5 per cent in 2015 to 57.7 per cent in 2019.5 Not only that, in August, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Nigeria said about 4.4 million Nigerians were at risk of critical food shortage and the growing threat of severe food insecurity was at the worst in five years6. Now let’s put it into another context. Let’s see how Nigeria does in comparison to other nations, and the best way to do this is to use the Global Food Security Index (GFSI) which measures and ranks countries’ level of food security on a scale of 0 (extreme food insecurity) and 100 (fully food secure). In this year GFSI report, Nigeria was ranked 97th out of 113 countries with an index score of 41.3/100.7 This means Nigeria is only more food secure than 16 countries. It is a no brainer for a country that is the poverty capital of the world to have a lot of people facing hunger.
A particular factor that is making the hunger situation in Nigeria even more scary is the increasing prices of food items. The inflation rate in Nigeria rose from 9.01 per cent in 20158 to 18.7 per cent in March 20219 while food inflation rose by 110.5 per cent in 5 years (September 2015-September 2020).10 This has a huge implication on people’s livelihood. They will have to spend more on the same volume of food they used to consume 5 years ago with 30,000 naira minimum wage and a weakened currency. People don’t have a choice than to reduce the volume of food they consume. For instance, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said over 50 per cent of all households reported a reduction in consumption between July and December 2020 due to falling wages and rising food costs.11
To address food problem in Nigeria, the current government has adopted various policies that emphasized local production of food, food self-sufficiency, and anti-food importation. The president even said in 2017 that “…we must be able to feed ourselves from what we grow and grow what we eat…”.12 However, despite the improvement in our food production index (increased from 80.80 in 2011 to 101.9 in 2018),13 the demand for agricultural products still outweighs the supply (see the chart below). The implication of this particular gap between supply and demand is basic knowledge – ECN 101, *winks*. When quantity demanded outweighs the quantity supplied, price increases. Hence, the continual increase in prices of food items.
The nexus
In April 2021, the SBM Intelligence noted that unrest, insurgency, weakened currency, and high fuel prices have all contributed to rising food prices.14 The following month, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) warned that no less than 9.2 million Nigerians could face a worse level of food insecurity this year as a result of conflicts.15
So how does insecurity lead to hunger and food inflation? Well, first of all, insecurity in Nigeria has led to the displacement and loss of livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people. What this portends is that displaced people are less likely to engage in economic activities that can provide them income and food, and they become more vulnerable to hunger and undernourishment because they will have to rely on inadequate emergency food interventions to sustain themselves. For instance, on 2 October 2021, the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internal Displaced Persons (NCFRIMI) disclosed that millions of IDPs in the country were facing food insecurity.16 Similarly, on 15 October 2021, the World Food Programme (WFP) raised an alarm that displaced families in the north-eastern part of the country are on the brink of facing starvation because of the need to cut rations to more than 500,000 IDPs due to insufficient funding, high cost of food, and an increasing number of IDPs.17
Simply put, Insecurity ——> Loss of livelihood ——> Vulnerable to hunger
Also, the killings of farmers and the farming communities by herders and bandits have made it difficult for farmers to access their land. As the Guardian puts it, “many farmers in the rural communities across the country have been deprived of access to their farmlands for fear of either being kidnapped for ransom or being attacked or killed by herders”.18 For instance, a farmer in Benue had to abandon his farmland because of insecurity. He said, “I usually cultivate rice, millet, and sesame seeds on 100 hectares (250 acres) of land in Guma… but this year, I ran. I ploughed 40 hectares but was unable to plant”.19 Even the Nasarawa state local State Emergency Management Agency chief raised alarm about food scarcity because farmers living in IDP camps are finding it difficult to return to their land to farm.20
Disruption of farming activities as a result of violent conflict will affect local production of food crops, and since it is obvious the current government is anti-food importation, worsened food inflation is expected especially when the supply of food cannot match the nationwide demand for food.
Simply put, insecurity ——> disruption in agricultural activities ——> decline in food production ——> food scarcity ——> high prices ——> hunger
Insecurity does not only disrupt agricultural activities but also local marketing system making it difficult for food crops to move from farms to markets and then to the final consumers. This leads to food shortage and ultimately high prices of food and hunger. As far back as 2013, a special report by the Famine Early Warming Systems Network (FEWS NET)21 observed that:
Boko Haram-related civil insecurity has restricted population movements, made traders reluctant to work in affected areas, and increased transportation and transaction costs in northeastern Nigeria. In addition, the declaration of a state of emergency on May 14th, 2013 in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe also resulted in border closure with Chad, parts of Cameroon, and parts of Niger. Consequently, market activities (trade flows of cereals, cash crops, and livestock) were below-average in northeastern Nigeria, as well as in neighboring areas of southeastern Niger and southwestern and west central Chad.
However, I would like to make a disclaimer. I am not arguing that insecurity is the reason for hunger and food insecurity in Nigeria but rather a contributing factor. As mentioned earlier, other factors include unemployment, poverty, stagnated or low income, weakened currency, climate change and natural disasters, the pandemic, etc. Another thing worth noting is that all these factors are not independent but interdependent – they feed off one another. Unemployment can exacerbate poverty, political instability, and hunger. Political instability can also exacerbate poverty, unemployment, and hunger. We can on and on with this.
Ultimately, peace and stability are needed to resolve Nigeria’s food problem. Fixing the food problem without addressing insecurity is like trying to store water in a basket. Peace and stability are necessary for economic activities such as farming, buying and selling of farm produce to thrive. Also, without security, unemployment, poverty, food production, and transportation become worse and all these are determinants of food accessibility.
Dedicated to Peace Shapers. Peace Shapers is a youth oriented not-for-profit organisation dedicated to raising young people who prioritise creative cooperation over violence for a just and inclusive society. Find them on IG: @peaceshapers
Action Against Hunger. 2021. available at: https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/world-hunger-facts-statistics
Council on Foreign Relations. 2021. available at: https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/boko-haram-nigeria
SBM Intelligence. 2021. available at: https://www.sbmintel.com/?s=chart+of+the+week
Reuters. 2021. available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-nigeria-security-kidnapping-idUKKBN2AI2B1
World Bank. 2021. available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SN.ITK.MSFI.ZS?locations=NG
Al Jazeera. 2021. available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/6/millions-of-children-go-hungry-in-northeast-igeria-ngo
GFSI .2021. available at: https://impact.economist.com/sustainability/project/food-security-index/index
Macro Trends. 2021. available at [https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NGA/nigeria/inflation-rate-cpi]
NBS. 2021. available at: [https://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/download/1241014]
Nairametrics. 2020. available at: [https://nairametrics.com/2020/10/31/nigerias-food-inflation-rises-by-110-5-in-five-years/]
Premium Times. 2017. available at: [https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/243071-nigeria-must-feed-buhari.html]
The Global Economy. 2021. available at: [https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Nigeria/food_production_index/]
Al Jazeera. 2021. available at: [https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/4/16/it-is-really-bad-nigerians-go-hungry-as-food-inflation-soars]
Africa News. 2021. available at: [https://www.africanews.com/2021/08/25/security-crisis-drives-up-nigeria-s-food-worries//]
The Guardian. 2021. available at: [https://guardian.ng/news/over-10m-idps-are-victims-of-food-insecurity-refugee-commission-declares/]
The UN. 2021. available at: [https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/10/1103252]
The Guardian. 2021. available at: [https://guardian.ng/news/facts-about-nigerias-food-inflation-survey/]
Africa News. 2021. available at: [https://www.africanews.com/2021/08/25/security-crisis-drives-up-nigeria-s-food-worries/].
ibid
FEWS NET. 2013. Available at: https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/West%20Africa%20Special%20Report%20July%202013.pdf