The Federal Government has identified food insecurity, malnutrition as well as climate change as factors responsible for lower incomes and higher prices of foods in the country.
It says the challenges have seriously put food out of the reach of many Nigerians.
According to a statement by the Ministry of Finance spokesperson, Olude Omolade, the Permanent Secretary, Budget and Planning, Nebolisa Anako, disclosed this at an ongoing workshop on the development of an implementation strategy for the Nigeria Food Systems Transformation Pathways held in Abuja.
Anako who was represented by the Director, National Monitoring and Evaluation, Zakari Lawani, described the ongoing program as a call to action to achieve progress in dealing with issues of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease, unemployment, conflict and changing weather patterns.
He said, “It suffices to say that food insecurity and malnutrition as well as the influence of climate change have resulted in lower incomes and higher prices of foods”.
“This has indeed put food out of the reach of many and undermining the right to food thereby stalling the efforts to meeting the Sustainable Development that emphasized ‘zero hunger’”.
eports that this assertion tally with the latest report by the National Bureau of statistics that an increase in the price of bread, cereal, rent, potatoes, yam, tubers, vegetables, and meat drove inflation up in February.
The national statistics body of the country stated, “The contributions of items on a class basis to the increase in the headline inflation index are presented, thus: bread and cereal (21.67 per cent), actual and imputed rent (7.74 per cent), potatoes, yam and other tubers (6.06 per cent), vegetable (5.44 per cent), and meat (4.78 per cent).”
