A recent report from Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture predicts that at least 31.5 million citizens may experience a food and nutrition crisis between June and August of this year. This alarming data highlights the severity of the food crisis that has progressively escalated over the last few years. The high prices of fruits and vegetables and their dwindling supply in local markets are already evident, as major staples disappear from food tables. This situation portends a bleak future for Nigeria as most people struggle to make ends meet, even in better times.
The federal government here is desperately throwing everything at this problem. Among several stopgap measures to shore up the country’s food security, it has declared a 150-day duty-free import window for food commodities and suspended duties, tariffs, and taxes for the importation of select food commodities. The country stands on the precipice of a full-blown food crisis, and the government is employing temporary measures, such as restrictions on import duties and offering grants and incentives to sub-national governments to grow their own food. However, it’s still too early to determine the effectiveness of these initiatives, and they’re short-term solutions that might not solve this problem sustainably over the long term.
The cause of Nigeria’s growing food shortage is multifaceted, yet spawns from the rapidly growing impacts of climate change. This has resulted in a set of cascading conditions. Climate change and the accompanying extreme and unpredictable weather patterns have negatively impacted small farmers across Nigeria. Irregular rainfall patterns over the last few years have resulted in the twin extremes of drought and flooding, significantly affecting farming activities. Additionally, the drying up of water sources like Lake Chad in northern Nigeria has reduced irrigated dry-season farming and has further fuelled perennial conflicts between herders and pastoralists. As a result, violent farmer-herder clashes have become recurrent in most farming communities in the north, sometimes leading to fatalities. The region, which is Nigeria’s breadbasket, has also been affected by high levels of insecurity caused by cross-border bandits from the Sahel region and neighboring countries, causing some farmers to abandon their farms, further depleting the agricultural workforce and reducing food production.
Nigeria’s agricultural infrastructure depends exclusively on haulage trucks for moving produce from farms to urban centers. With the recent removal of government subsidies on petroleum products, logistics costs have risen astronomically. In addition, truck operators are often faced with multiple taxes and tolls at interstate boundaries, making these trips expensive. Only a few farmers (mostly middlemen) can brave these expensive trips to deliver food to cities, and these additional costs are passed on to consumers. In other cases, a significant percentage of produce, especially perishable items, are often left to rot due to poor logistics, contributing to Nigeria’s huge annual post-harvest losses across the country. Consequently, everyday staples, fruits, and vegetables such as tomatoes and carrots are disappearing from the food tables of most urban dwellers in Nigeria.
A New Future in Urban Farming
The severity of this problem is felt most acutely in cities, but the solution could lie within them too. Ebenezer Howard, in his 1898 book To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (later revised and reprinted in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-morrow), proposed practical solutions to the overcrowding and industrial pollution of Victorian cities by creating self-sufficient suburban cities surrounded by agricultural lands. Pre-colonial African towns were similarly bordered by farmlands, as people were mostly subsistence farmers. Even with the advent of urbanization, post-independence, urban and peri-urban farms were a key feature across African cities. City residents cultivated varying sizes of plots from backyard farms to appropriated cul-de-sacs and a few hectares of peri-urban farms on the edge of the city where residents grew vegetables like spinach, bell peppers, pumpkin leaves, and tomatoes. These offered a degree of self-sufficiency for most cities. Sadly, all of these have been lost to the mindless urbanization that has characterized the last half-century.
No city in Nigeria has integrated food systems into their urban fabric, yet the growing population, security, climatic, and economic challenges necessitate a new way of thinking to mitigate the effects of climate change and its impact on food production. Urban farming offers us a lifeline. There is the potential for big cities such as Abuja and Lagos to produce a quarter of their vegetable needs, which would bolster food security, cut prices, and reduce carbon emissions. Growing food within the cities eliminates the expensive, cumbersome and carbon-intensive logistics, while also offering organic food to residents. These initiatives will also create jobs, improve nutrition for the local population, and improve the overall quality of life for residents.
With 68% of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, there is a significant push globally toward developing urban food systems. Several cities around the world offer replicable models for urban agriculture. Despite being a concrete jungle, Tokyo has integrated food production infrastructure within the city, making urban agriculture an ecologically and economically viable solution. About 3.3% of the city’s land is agricultural. Havana and other cities in Cuba have planted more than 8,000 urban farms, covering 35,000 hectares. These efforts have demonstrated the potential of growing food at scale within city limits, a factor that was chiefly responsible for Cuba’s ability to mitigate the effects of sanctions in the 1990s. Paris, Europe’s densest city, is also aiming to cultivate a substantial part of its food within and around the city, illustrated by the world’s biggest urban farm atop Parc des Expositions. Since Mayor Anne Hidalgo made this a priority, many other farms have sprung up across the city.
A significant portion of the food cultivated in rural areas ends up in cities. Thus it makes sense to integrate food security within urban areas rather than relying entirely on subsistence farmers in the countryside, who are currently unable to meet the country’s food needs. While there may be concerns about pollution and contamination, these can be mitigated by zoning farms within designated green areas and buffer lands across the city.
Urban farming also offers the opportunity to run integrated food systems that recycle wastewater to irrigate farmlands while reducing urban heat islands and utilizing undeveloped plots for agrarian activities. Urban farms also reduce the need for packaging and refrigeration and form a crucial part of cities’ climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. Farms can help cool cities, reduce heat island effects, minimize flood risks, and manage stormwater.
Nigerian cities are urbanizing rapidly and their food systems must evolve just as quickly. Changing spatial and demographic patterns across cities are significantly shaping food systems, with implications for safety, security and good health. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, at least 70% of all food produced globally is destined for consumption in urban areas. A greater focus on the urban food agenda is long overdue.
Nigeria’s broken food system is a social equity issue, as food shortages disproportionately affect the urban poor. This situation has the potential to trigger civil unrest in the coming months, signs of which are already visible. Urban farming offers the best guarantees to bridge this gap quickly and sustainably, leading to the development of sustainable and resilient cities. City authorities across Africa must view urban food systems as integral to contemporary placemaking. Ensuring that the needs of city residents are adequately addressed directly impacts their quality of life and overall well-being. The urban food value chain should not be left to chance but viewed as a core aspect of placemaking and social equity.
