Vulnerabilities and Re-prioritization Measures for Fostering the Balance to Food Sufficiency in Africa

Andrew-Essien Elizabeth. Esekong^1, , Bisong Francis Ebuta², Anwana Eno Deborah³, Ndiyo Ayara Ndem², Okon Asuquo. E² and Akintoye Ayorinde Akintoye¹

¹Department of Environmental Resources Management, University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria

²Department of Geography & Environmental Sciences, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria

³Department of Botany and Ecological Studies, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria

Cite this paper

Andrew-Essien Elizabeth. Esekong, Bisong Francis Ebuta, Anwana Eno Deborah, Ndiyo Ayara Ndem, Okon Asuquo. E and Akintoye Ayorinde Akintoye. Vulnerabilities and Re-prioritization Measures for Fostering the Balance to Food Sufficiency in Africa. Journal of Food Security. 2022; 10(1):1-9. doi: 10.12691/JFS-10-1-1

Abstract

Human security remains the bedrock of all sustainable development goals. However, a central fulcrum that ties human security to sustainable development is food security. Food security encapsulates environmental and capital resources invested through food production to determine the viability of market prices access, availability, utilization and stability. The dynamics of food security has affected the progressive development of developing countries over the years. The environmental and socio-economic cost of the Covid-19 is evident in the economy- shut-down and its attendant consequences for human security. This paper utilizes situation analysis to project the food production trends in Africa to highlight the imperatives of its re-prioritization. It asserts that failure to mainstream the viability of support-systems to cope with the ripple effects of pandemic-stressors resulting in declined productivity and subsequently economic losses that exacerbate the pandemic-influence to further environmental, health and financial crises. These losses present grave consequences of the attendant effects on food sufficiency in the stride to meeting the sustainable development goals by 2030. The recommended options include the development of cost-effective strategies that include the removal of stringent national and regional trade policies. African leaders must embrace the fact that drivers of food insecurity, such as the current pandemic and associated policies go beyond national jurisdictions, instead it demands a multi-stakeholder response. Importantly, the adequacies and relevance of food security strategies such as the Integrated Food security strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa developed in close association with international donors needs to be re-appraised. Questions of 'one size fits all' should be revised as uniformity is inapplicable across the sub-region, due to contrasting governance structures. Lastly, reprioritizing public and private investments in agriculture are necessary for food sufficiency within the continent if the aim is to end all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030.

Keywords

human security, food sufficiency, pandemics-vulnerability, Covid-19, welfare, Africa

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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