Nigeria faces food crisis as floods ravage farmlands, crops

Nigeria faces a serious food crisis as flood ravages communities with thousands of hectares of farmlands and crops submerged.

The floods have not just destroyed farmlands, they have also prevented the transport of trucks and damaged roads and bridges, further pressuring the food supply.

Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said the floods in 27 of Nigeria’s 36 states and capital city have affected half a million people including 100,000 displaced.

“Flooding is still ongoing but we can safely say that between 60 to 75 percent of the yield we expected is going to be lost,” Kabir Ibrahim, president of All Farmers Association of Nigeria, told AFP this week.

“It’s monumental. So many people are crying.”

More than 600 people have died and 1.3 million others were forced to leave their homes according to the latest figures given by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Sadiya Umar Farouq.

“If you don’t open the water through the spillways, then dams will break,” said Ibrahim, and then “it would be like Pakistan. All of Nigeria would be under water like Pakistan.”

Farmers were warned ahead of time but it wasn’t enough.

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“We used the predictions and avoided planting along flood-prone areas,” said Ibrahim, “but now you can see that the devastation is all over.”

As a result, Ibrahim, whose organisation represents 20 million farmers, believes “there will be more hardship towards the end of the year and beginning of next year.”

Food inflation year-on-year was already at 23.3 percent last month, in part because of ripple effects on the import-dependent country from the coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

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Rampant insecurity with gunmen repeatedly attacking rural communities also forced many farmers to abandon their fields.

The World Food Programme and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said last month that Nigeria was among six countries facing a high risk of catastrophic levels of hunger, even before the floods.

Now, “the impact of the floods on food production is a real threat to the country and could lead to a major food crisis,” said Hussaini Abdu, Nigeria director of the CARE charity.

The FAO representative in Nigeria, Fred Kafeero, said he was “deeply concerned” as food supplies were expected to be low “due to anticipated reduction in household production”.

President Muhammadu Buhari approved the release of 12,000 metric tons of assorted grains from a national strategic reserve stock. But farmers are not sure it will be enough.

Meanwhile, the United States has pledged $1 million in immediate humanitarian assistance to support the people affected by unprecedented flooding in Nigeria.

The support, which will come through the U.S. Agency for International Development, provides emergency shelter assistance, relief commodities, and hygiene kits to promote safe and healthy practices amid the ongoing cholera outbreak, and multipurpose cash assistance for people impacted by the devastating floods.