Monday Ocheja
A Veterinarian and Managing Consultant of OmniAgrik Specialities, Dr Yila Umaru, has identified food insecurity as the biggest challenge facing Nigeria possibly turning her to a hunger hotspot.
By extension, it is also a globally issue, where about 800million people go to bed with hunger, which constitutes about 10% of the world population.
Dr Yila was delivering a lecture at a One-day Media Training on Food Security and Nutrition, Wednesday in Kaduna, organized by Africa Media Development Foundation (AMDF), in partnership with OmniAgrik Specialities.
Having realized the role of the media, he explained, the Organisers decided to train journalists in order to create awareness, thereby set an agenda that would provoke attention of government to take action against food insecurity.
Dr. Umaru listed a number of negative factors impacting on food status as weather condition, political instability, economy, unemployment and rising food prices , among others.
Without mincing words, the Expert stated that the biggest challenge before Nigeria is not that of an impending war, but that of food insecurity, which is already at the doorstep as predicted by the UN, saying it is getting worst by the days.
Nigerians, he observed, do not have adequate physical, social and economic access to food.
“We eat food in order to maintain our body system, food should be taken at interval with proper nutrition value, and not when available. This would help the body system to get the required nutrition that is needed,” he emphasized.
While identifying malnutrition as the most destroyer to human potential on the planet, Dr Yila said most deaths in children are hunger related, arising from shortage in supply of the needed food with proper nutritional value for children.
He observed that even those who survived are either faced with one disability or the other, because of the insufficient nutrition in the food children consumed, which also contribute to the learning ability of the children in school.
As a result of this, the Expert spotted children as the most vulnerable group because of lack of protein and essential food and minerals, which leads to malnutrition and other forms of illness.
He said the most dangerous days in child’s life is the first 1000 days, from conception, and that the best way to guarantee food security is with the mother, who the child run to any time he or she is hungry.