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+--- Thread: PMB Seeks Intensive Effort To End Food Crisis (/showthread.php?tid=805)
PMB Seeks Intensive Effort To End Food Crisis - Mhiz Rebecca - 12-12-2016
President Muhammadu Buhari has called
for concerted effort to end the looming
food and nutrition crisis in the Economic
Community of West Africa State (ECOWAS)
most especially in the Lake Chad region.
He also frowned at the high rate of illegal
migration of Nigerian youths to Europe
through the Mediterranean Sea, coupled
with the activities of Boko Haram
insurgent group in the Lake chad region
which has led to acute malnutrition and
food crisis.
President Buhari who stated this at the
32nd annual meeting of the Sahel and
West Africa Week organised by the Food
Crisis Protection Network in Abuja,
yesterday, described the food crisis threat
in West Africa as real.
Represented by the Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development Chief Audu Ogbeh,
he called for an immediate stop to the act
of illegal migration, saying it was ‘’unfair
to European countries.’’ President Buhari
who said that agriculture revitalisation
was a solution to the migration issue,
expressed the readiness of his
administration to support farmers in order
to boost local production in the country.
He said, “We think that if we re-organise
our agriculture better, many of these
youths will earn a decent living at home
and do not have to die in the desert or
drown in the Mediterranean Sea or
become an embarrassment to their host
countries and to us here in Africa.
“We are not unmindful of our youth’s
population here, hence the need to ensure
that the agriculture sector is revitalised as
soon as possible.
“We have decided that we will no longer
rely on rainfall, we will create dams, water
reservoirs and insist on harvesting food at
least three times in a year.’’ According to
him, there are 800 million hectares of
agricultural lands across the world that is
yet to be cultivated and Africa owes half of
them. The president, appealed to Sahel
and West African and other relevant
agricultural stakeholders to devise ideas
that would guarantee better management
in cattle breeding through artificial
insemination. He however, said his
administration was aggressively tackling
humanitarian crisis of the Internally
Displaced Persons by attending to issues
of food and nutrition especially for women
and children in the North East.
“We are pained when we see our youths
especially across West and North Eastern
Africa desperately scrambling to board
boats, travel by roads, endue any pain,
absorb any humiliation in a desperate
attempt to cross the desert, get to Libya
and cross the Mediterranean Sea to
Europe.
“We consider it as something that must
stop as fast as possible because it is
unfair to Europe,’’ he added. The
President of ECOWAS Commission, Mr
Marcel De Souza disclosed that no fewer
than 40 million Nigerians were internally
displaced as a result of the insecurity in
the North Eastern region.
He listed some of the developmental
challenges of the Sahel and West African
regions to include economic and political
governance. De Souza called on
governments of the regions to invest
toward addressing unemployment and
food crisis which were bane to
development.
The Malian Minister of Agriculture, Mr
Kassoum Denon appealed tovarious
countries in the Sahel and West Africa to
share ideas and success stories with a
view to addressing food crisis in the
regions.