Enhancing food security and nutrition through resilient agrifood value chains

Abstract

The war in Ukraine, with other attendant consequences, has resulted in a massive decline in the supply of major staple foods leading to a rise in food prices globally. As the world focuses on the global food crises precipitated by the Ukrainian war; it is important to contextualize food and nutrition insecurity in the light of domestic challenges. Nigeria’s population in conflict zones have faced and will continue to face food insecurity crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity due to ruthless banditry in the northwest. For example, in 2016, the United Nations reported that Boko Haram bombings in Northern Nigeria disrupted trade routes between Chad and Nigeria, interrupting the supply of basic goods and causing local price hikes. In addition, climate change, natural disasters, violence between farmers and herders; kidnappings, and other forms of insecurity have impacted food production and distribution in Nigeria making food crisis a daily war for Nigerians. At the same time, agricultural productivity has steadily grown, and technological and institutional innovations have proliferated within agrifood markets and value chain with the potential to reduce poverty and food insecurity around the world. A food value chain (FVC) consists of all the stakeholders who participate in the coordinated production and value-adding activities that are needed to make food products. According to HLPE (2014), losses and wastes are common in all the phases of the FVCs (pre-harvest, harvesting and initial handling, storage, transport and logistics, processing and packaging, retailing and, finally, consumption activities). The agrifood value chain development in Nigeria is facing many barriers to fulfilling its potential including but not limited to capacity, enabling environment, governance, infrastructure, and policies conducive to sustainability and growth. Adding value post-production and minimizing losses with innovations in post-harvest and processing phases can have significant economic and environmental impacts, with input savings and carbon footprint reductions