Nigeria In Trouble

I heard somewhere that Ukraine has pretty much written off this year's crops. That's a bad thing. Ukraine is known as the "bread basket" of Europe. Between them and Russia, they account for a massive chunk of the world's wheat, which is the main ingredient in making bread. So the "bread basket" name is more than figurative, it's quite literal.

I was having this conversation with some friends that live in Nigeria, West Africa, and they were saying that they couldn't see how this would affect them or cause food insecurity as far away as where they are. This may seem true until I pointed out that Nigeria is one of the largest importers of fertiliser in the world, most of which is from Russia!

Basically, even though Nigeria is a large bread eating country (due to population not bread-based diet like in Europe), they still depend on fertiliser because the most agriculturally productive part of the country is not the same as the most agriculturally fertile part! What?!

Most of the food is grown in the north and middle belt, with climate ranging from arid to minimal rain fall. This means the area requires irrigation and fertilisers to grow food. The south, which gets abundant rain and has rich dark soil, isn't as agriculturally productive. The reason may be because many southerners have abandoned agriculture for urban living and modern jobs. Being a farmer is seen as being from a "lower" socio-economic class. Everyone want's to be a banker or lawyer.

The advent of crude oil as Nigeria's main source of income has also decimated the traditionally agriculture areas of the South and West, as more youth pursue education geared towards office work, or petroleum related jobs.

This artificial dependency on Russia means Nigeria is in trouble. Well, more trouble than most Nigerians think (and that's saying a lot). Food insecurity is in the immediate future, to add to the already dire situations. Everything insecurity.

To add to the fears, I heard that the usual rains haven't started falling following the Harmattan dry season, or at least they've been delayed.

I'm not sure what the solution is in the short term. The long term solution is clear - a return to the farm, especially in the south and west of the country. In the very short term though, let's hope things don't get too bad.

Peace & Love,

Adé