Nigeria's agricultural sector has long been a significant contributor to national growth, with the potential to further reduce poverty. This sector, encompassing crop production, livestock, forestry, and fishing, has the potential to hold export opportunities and can strategically become the engine for economic prosperity, given Nigeria's large population.
Search NaijaAgroNet
Showing posts with label challenges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label challenges. Show all posts
Friday, May 3, 2024
Food security: How tech can tackle challenges in Nigeria - NaijaAgroNet
Nigeria's agricultural sector has long been a significant contributor to national growth, with the potential to further reduce poverty. This sector, encompassing crop production, livestock, forestry, and fishing, has the potential to hold export opportunities and can strategically become the engine for economic prosperity, given Nigeria's large population.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Urban diets and nutrition: Trends, challenges, and opportunities for policy action
NaijaAgroNet:
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology
|
The Global
Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition has launched a new
brief: Urban diets and nutrition: trends, challenges, and
opportunities for policy action, reports NaijaAgroNet.
Just as the President of the African Development Bank Dr. Akinwumi
Adesina has received the World Food Prize 2017.
The brief looks at the challenge of providing
healthy diets in urban environments in low and middle-income countries,
presenting eight recommendations directed primarily at policymakers
especially those working at the sub-national level.
Attended by Global Panel Members Akinwumi Adesina, President, African
Development Bank and 2017 World Food Prize laureate; Agnes Kalibata,
President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa; Tom Arnold, Former
Director General, Institute of International and European Affairs; and Emmy
Simmons, Senior Adviser, Non-resident, to the Center for Strategic and
International Studies Global Food Security Project; former Assistant
Administrator, US Agency for International Development.
66 per cent of the world’s population is projected to be urban by 2050. The additional 2.5 billion urban residents will live primarily in Africa and Asia. This is leading to a growing crisis of urban malnutrition. “There is an urgent need for better urban governance around food, nutrition and health”, said Adesina. “Urban populations need improved information on how to live well by eating well.” The brief gives particular focus to the growing threat of diet-related non-communicable disease. The greater wealth in urban centres, relative to rural areas, does not necessarily lead to healthier diets, with excessive consumption of highly-processed foods that are high in calories but low in nutrients. Emmy Simmons argues that “within complex, diverse urban environments, poor dietary choices could create a further financial burden, with rising levels of overweight or obesity generating increases in the health care costs associated with non-communicable diseases”. The eight recommendations in the brief call for a wider policy approach which integrates actions from food, agriculture and nutrition into urban planning, education, health, sanitation, water and infrastructure development. It will also require a shift in attitudes towards the informal food sector and the collection of better data on urban diets. The brief shows how policymakers at the local level need to champion better diets and nutrition, but this requires them to be both mandated and empowered to act. Panel Member Tom Arnold argues that these “public policymakers need to recognise that productivity, quality of life and life expectancy in urban areas will revolve around healthy diets and lifestyles.” Without decisive action, the Global Panel argues that this urban malnutrition crisis will deepen. This is especially important in many low and middle-income countries where urban dwellers do not consume enough basic calories, lack sufficient micronutrients, or suffer from being overweight or obese with associated diet-related non-communicable diseases, leading to a ‘triple burden of urban malnutrition’. As Dr. Kalibata recently stated, “The growing threat of an urban food crisis can no longer be ignored”.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
|
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Food security: FAO highlights need for strategic cooperation *43.7m undernourished in NENA region
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has highlighted need for
strategic regional cooperation in the wake of conflicts, rapid population
growth and urbanization, and a heavy reliance on food imports which are posing
serious challenges for food security, NaijaAgroNet
reports.
... Linking agrobiz, people & technology
A press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet by officials of FAO,
indicates that three countries in the region Near East and North Africa (NENA),
namely the Algeria, Jordan and Kuwait; have met the hunger component of the
first Millennium Development Goal (MDG1) by halving the proportion of their
population experiencing chronic hunger.
NaijaAgroNet gathered that region-wide,
the number of undernourished people remains high at nearly 43.7 million, or 10
per cent of the population, while 24.5 per cent of children under five are
stunted due to chronic under-nutrition, according to an assessment presented at
the start of the organization's regional
conference at the weekend.
Experts also said that micronutrient deficiencies are common in both
affluent and less affluent countries, having a number of serious consequences
for school enrollment, productivity and public health.
FAO further decried that conflicts and civil strife remained the
driving factor for food insecurity in the region in recent years, just as the
hotspots include Iraq, Sudan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Yemen.
In Syria alone, an estimated 6.3 million people
are in need of sustained food and agricultural assistance.... Linking agrobiz, people & technology
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)