By Dele Sobowale

“And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together.” Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745.

Nobody can seriously dispute the fact that the six major threats to our country today are pervasive insecurity, exchange rates, interest rates, fuel prices, inflation and food scarcity. To some extent, they are all inextricably linked. But, the one that to be provoking widespread angst is food scarcity.

Let me borrow the words of one of the greatest contributors to global food security, Dr Norman Borlaugh, 1914-2009. the father of the Green Revolution who when receiving his Nobel Prize for Agriculture told the world that “the time is a quarter to midnight”. In Nigeria Governments at Federal and State levels now realise that we are in a race between food sufficiency and national disaster. We are poised on a knife’s edge and we either move forward or slide to the barbarity. We are already on the verge of cannibalism.

Once in a while, we read in the papers or watch on television about parents who were arrested for selling their children in order to make ends meet. It has never occurred to most of us that those parents are only one step removed from actually eating those kids.

They certainly don’t give a damn if the buyers roast them.

Of all the problems, too numerous to list, and at any rate familiar to all of us, challenging us, and seemingly intractable, food scarcity appears to be the one we can tackle very urgently, and collectively and expect some measure of success in the short-term. Not that it will be easy, but, increased food production within months holds the best chance.

Before you stop reading, please remember this. Other nations facing acute food shortages have experienced the same or worse deprivations before now; and by approaching the problem with new and different ideas, are now net food exporters. India was one of them. China was another one.

Up till the 1980s, China depended heavily on American grains for the survival of its people. Today, China harvests more wheat, maize and rice than the US. The transformation was not by accident. It took years of relentless effort, blood, sweat, tears and national determination to get there. The earth does not willingly yield its bountiful blessings on lazy people – like Nigerians.

“Na poor I poor; I no dey craze.” Ayinde Bakare, Late Juju maestro.

Unfortunately, the expected result cannot be achieved by continuing with conventional approaches to food production. From time immemorial, food production had been left solely to rural dwellers – particularly rural women. Most Nigerians are unaware that women and girls account for close to 70 per cent of the food produced in Nigeria on small scale farms.

That fact, partially explains the reason for the sharp drop in food production in the last three or four years despite the ambitious Anchor Borrowers Programme, ABP, which provided unprecedented amounts of funds and inputs.

When the hoodlums – Boko Haram, kidnappers, abductors, herdsmen and cattle rustlers — moved in, the women ran out as fast as their legs and wrappers would allow them, leaving millions of farms untended. Nothing governments offer, except iron-clad guarantee of their safety will induce most of them to return. They are certainly poor; but they are neither stupid nor suicide bent.

I was in Goronyo, Sokoto State in February 2020 to see how the damn for which we lobbied President Babangida had transformed the state from semi-arid to one of Nigeria’s biggest food baskets. It was well beyond my wildest expectations.

I visited the five old farmer-neighbours still alive and received the first report of hoodlums activities in the area.

In March this year, the last of the old colleagues told me when I called that he had abandoned his farms after two of his daughters were abducted and huge ransom had to be paid. Since then, his two wives and three daughters had moved to Sokoto to trade. He is not alone. Several farms along the Sokoto, Shagari Village, Tambuwal and Jega highway lie idle now.

Urbanites waited for the harvests to consume from rural farms that have long been deserted. Today, three developments point to the fact that just as war is too important to be left only to generals, food production has become too vital to be left only to rural dwellers and farmers.

Urban and sub-urban Nigerians must get ready to contribute to national food production – if massive starvation is to be averted. Too many variables point to the need for this to happen.

First, relentless rural-urban drift continues to shift the percentage of Nigerians towards urban communities. The change from three regions in 1960 to 36 states today has turned several villages to state capitals or big towns. All of them have incorporated several former farmlands into the burgeoning state capitals.

Among other transformations, farmlands have been turned to airports, universities and sports stadiums. Even the smallest airport sits on land previously used by hundreds of farmers. And, while the returns from the farms were positive, only four of the airports are viable. They actually drain resources from the states instead of contributing positively to social welfare.

Second, the national emphasis on education has ensured that even children of farmers increasingly disdain farming. The trend is most noticeable in the South. Even off-springs of successful cocoa and palm produce farmers want to become Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs or, Senators. There is no continuity. Batons are being dropped everywhere. Yet, everybody wants to eat food.

Third, in the last nine years, farming has become the quickest way to the graveyard. Formerly peaceful and safe rural communities have been transformed to regular killing fields.

Productivity has plummeted even as the population increased annually with 6 million additional mouths to feed. All rural communities now find it difficult to feed themselves; we risk catastrophe by expecting them to feed the rest of us.

President Tinubu’s order aimed at inducing importation of food for 180 days was, therefore, the best decision of his administration so far. There was simply no alternative – if disaster was to be averted. The expected harvest this year would not save us.

”Ignorance is bliss.” It was not surprising that the loudest criticism of emergency food importation has come from know-nothing urban dwellers.

They want the FG to bring food prices down without indicating how that can be possible – given the projected harvest for this year. People who would not know what to do with a hoe, if given one and an acre of land, nevertheless think a President can issue an Executive Order to bring a 50 kilogramme bag of rice down to N5000.

It would not happen here in Nigeria because it has never happened anywhere else in the world. Kings, Queens and Presidents anywhere in the world have never been able to order grains to grow in the quantities they wanted.

The people in every country and in every age have fed themselves while taking appropriate notice of their leaders’ instructions regarding how to go about increasing food productivity for all.

Occasionally, the breakthrough comes from an unexpected source.

ENTER MOTHER TINUBU

“God could not be everywhere, and therefore, He made mothers.

Jewish proverb, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 165.

Just as I thought all was lost, that nobody was thinking outside the box, the First Lady, Mrs Tinubu, appeared on television to start a vegetable garden in Aso Rock. To me, it was the best thing she has ever done since entering public life.

She is actually going further than Swift. Instead of making two blades of grass grow where one grew before, she is trying to get food to grow where none grew before. If ever Nigeria will escape the impending fate of massive famine, her intervention holds the answer for all of us.

She has brought farming to the city. I understand that she is encouraging urban women she comes in contact with to follow her example. Mrs Tinubu might not realise it, but she has initiated an idea which has made India and China the largest food producers in the world today.

She only needs to formalise the programme to make a serious impact by the time 180 days expire. After that, she can write her name into Nigerian history as the person who saved millions of lives – in golden letters.

She is already on the right track; she only needs to know how to speed up the effort. Believe me; the nature of Nigerian food production will not only change in two years – it will be altered for ever.

Already, there is a template for making her idea a national success; and at surprisingly low cost to the nation. Today, about 30 million urban and suburban farmers harvest more of certain types of food – tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, and vegetables — than half of the Nigerian farmers engaged in the same endeavour.

They also raise more chicken and goats than we can consume. We can learn a lot from the Indian experience; but, we already know a lot about how they turned around their nation from a food-deficit to a food-surplus nation. Mrs Tinubu can provide the leadership needed at this time in our nation’s history.

History beckons, I hope she will seize the opportunity.

The VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS is now available online. Read all you want, any time and anywhere.

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