Abstract
Nigeria is one of the most dynamic economies in Africa. Strong GDP and population growth coupled with urbanization trends place tremendous pressures on natural resources and the food systems that are dependent on them. Understanding the impact of these “mega trends” is important to identify key leverage points for navigating towards improved nutrition and food security in Nigeria. This paper contributes to the Foresight Project of the Food Systems for Healthier Diets which aims to analyse how the food system in Nigeria is expected to transform in the next decades, and to identify the leverage points for making sure that the transformation contributes to balanced consumer diets. For the food systems foresight, a well-established global economy-wide model, MAGNET, is applied that enables to capture the interlinkages among different food industry players in one consistent framework. By linking MAGNET to the GENUS nutritional database, it is further possible to relate the developments occurring on a macro-level with detailed macro and micronutrient consumption. Model projections suggest that a process of intensification of agriculture in combination with land substitution appears critical for the evolution of food and nutrition security, and for shifts towards healthy diets for the population. Intensification results in greater diversity of the production systems, which in turn cascades into positive effects on the diversity in the food supply and better food security outcomes.
Highlights
Nigeria is one of the most dynamic economies in Africa
This paper seeks to contribute with macro-level foresight to the identification of leverage points in the food system of Nigeria for promoting healthy diets in these respects with the exception of safety
The analysis starts by looking at the agricultural input and factor markets because they directly reveal the pressures or abundance of resources driven by the combination of economic and population growth
Summary
Nigeria is one of the most dynamic economies in Africa. Strong GDP growth and high fertility rates [1] suggest an unfinished demographic revolution, placing tremendous pressures on natural resources and the food systems that are dependent on them. While chronic malnutrition remains widespread (in 2013, 37% of children under 5 years of age were stunted [3]), the need to curb the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults and children is emerging as a priority for food security and health policy. Economic development and changing market conditions are associated with shifts in consumption patterns that simultaneously move towards and away from healthy diets [4]. This paper seeks to contribute with macro-level foresight to the identification of leverage points in the food system of Nigeria for promoting healthy diets in these respects with the exception of safety. Land Supply Elasticity: Overview of Available Estimates and Recommended Values for Magnet; EU: Brussels, Belgium, 2017; ISBN 978-92-79-69102-7. Household Food Expenditure Patterns, Food Nutrient Consumption and Nutritional Vulnerability in Nigeria: Implications for Policy.
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