Nigeria - Saturday 3, April 2021: The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Institute of Animal Science (NIAS), Professor Eustace Ayemere Iyayi, has charged the Federal Government to take proactive actions in tackling the security challenges in order to avert impending national hunger in the country.

The registrar gave the charge on Thursday during an exclusive interview with CEOAFRICA at the Founder’s Day celebration, which doubled as the 57th anniversary of Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology, Moor Plantation, Ibadan.

Prof. Iyayi disclosed that the looming food crisis is largely due to the security challenges in the country.

He added that insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and the farmer-herders crisis are targeted at the farmers, which have discouraged them from active farming and harvesting what they have planted.

The CEO of NIAS further noted that if food insecurity in the country would be averted in Nigeria, the Federal Government must address the root cause of the problem, which is insecurity.

His statement read in part: “The way to get out of these problems is to see the root causes of these problems. Once you identify those root causes you have the problem solved, at least halfway.

“We know those issues that are causing food insecurity, apart from climate change and the Naira that is sliding in value which makes it difficult for people to bring in equipment.

“But these have always been here and we’ve been managing them. What has exacerbated the problem is the issue of insecurity that we have.

“The insurgency in the North-east, banditry in the North-west, farmer-herder crises in North-central and other parts of the country are targeted at these livelihood sustainers (Farmers). “They are the ones that can’t go to farm, clear the land, plant nor harvest. We are feeling the pressure right now.

“What the government needs to do is to tackle this insecurity problem once and for all.

“Go after the bandits and their sponsors. We know where they are, they’re in the forests.

“These people found their way to the forest, how did they get there? So we can equally go there and meet them. That’s why some governors have been crying that people need to get out of the forest reserves, the government needs to tackle that. So there has to be very strong intelligence network to counter the banditry and the kidnapping issue.”

Speaking on how Nigeria can effectively maximize its farm produce that will also contribute to the country’s economy, the erudite professor disclosed that the nation must embrace the next phase of industralisation, which will add value to Nigeria’s farm produce.

He said “For effective utilization of our farm produce, we must go into value addition, which is the next phase of industralisation.

“We have to industrialise our farm produce by processing, packaging and then marketing them.

“We just need a government that is holistic in approach, both in thinking, in vision and execution of that vision.

“Take maize for example, why can’t you have it two ways, for both animal and human consumption? Then you improve on millet, after all someone invented popcorn, that is industrialisation, taking it to the next level.

“When there was blockage of moving tomatoes from the North to the south, they got wasted, they couldn’t add value to it.

“We import tomatoes paste which we are not even sure is from real tomatoes. So we need to have community cottage industry where we can process what they produce and they’ll find a market within that community.”

He therefore urged Government at all levels to declare state of emergency in Agriculture and take advantage of the partnership with African Development Bank on setting up special agro processing zones.

Prof. Iyayi concluded that Nigeria has the potential to boast of nutritional food sufficiency and being the largest exporting food country in Africa.