Director of the African Union Global Office and Representative to the African Union and Economic Commission for Africa, Dr Hameed Nuru has called on the federal government to give a dedicated budget to food security, to effectively tackle the soaring cost of food prices and food crisis in Nigeria.
He also urged Nigerians to step up from their current backyard farming, into semi-commercial and commercial farming to make foods abundant in the country. Nuru further called on the government to put in place all-year-round farming to also tackle the problems of climate change and unpredictability of the farmers which have always led to food crises.
“We need to harness our indigenous foods, our children must inculcate the habit of indigenous foods, they are the best almighty God has given us. This would reduce our dependence on foreign foods. Last year alone, entire Africa spent 68.8Billion US Dollars on food importation, that was too much, it could be reduced.” he said.