Michael Olugbode in Abuja
The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has referred to as for pressing reforms to Nigeria’s meals system, warning that industrial agriculture, restrictions on farmers’ rights to indigenous seeds and the neglect of agroecology are undermining meals sovereignty, vitamin and local weather resilience.
The environmental organisation stated starvation amid ample pure and human assets mirrored deeper failures in political and financial decisions, stressing that tackling meals insecurity required greater than rising agricultural output.
In an announcement to mark World Food Day, HOMEF urged governments to handle the foundation causes of starvation and malnutrition, shield farmers’ rights, strengthen native meals methods and be certain that smallholder farmers retain management over the seeds they plant.
The organisation stated local weather change, financial instability and conflicts continued to disrupt meals manufacturing and distribution, exposing the vulnerability of meals methods that prioritise industrial uniformity over agricultural variety.
Its Executive Director, Nnimmo Bassey, stated the annual observance ought to function a chance to confront the structural issues throughout the meals system somewhat than merely have fun meals manufacturing.
“World Food Day should be a day of reflection. It must also be a day of structural reckoning,” Bassey stated, criticising what he described as a meals system dominated by monoculture and money cropping on the expense of biodiversity and farmers’ independence.
He stated the method had weakened meals provide chains, depleted soil vitality and diminished farmers’ means to find out what they develop and the way they produce it.
Bassey urged Nigerians to be extra aware of the meals they eat, arguing that meals sovereignty have to be central to efforts to handle the interconnected meals and local weather crises.
He described indigenous seeds as vital assets for adapting to altering weather conditions, noting that their genetic variety may assist drought resistance, pest administration and improved dietary outcomes.
“We must move beyond the short-sighted goal of ‘yield at any cost’ and support a transition to agroecology,” he stated.
According to him, defending indigenous seeds goes past native management of agricultural assets, because it additionally safeguards the biodiversity wanted to maintain ecosystems and meals manufacturing.
“We cannot have a healthy planet if we continue to destroy the very biological foundations that are our seeds, that allow life to persist,” he added.
HOMEF’s Director of Programmes, Joyce Brown, stated the persistence of starvation in a resource-rich continent uncovered the results of prevailing political and financial insurance policies.
She argued that meals shouldn’t be handled merely as a commodity for revenue however as a vital part of public well being, cultural identification and human rights.
Brown stated real meals sovereignty required governments and worldwide establishments to rethink insurance policies that favour industrial exporters over small-scale native producers.
“True food sovereignty means shifting the power dynamics of the food system,” she stated, including that native producers ought to obtain larger assist to provide meals that meets the dietary and cultural wants of their communities.
She additionally warned that restrictions on farmers’ entry to and use of indigenous seeds may weaken dietary safety, significantly amongst susceptible populations.
Brown particularly raised considerations in regards to the Nigerian Plant Variety Protection Act, 2021, arguing that seed-related insurance policies should shield farmers’ rights and protect their means to avoid wasting and replant conventional varieties.
“We must ensure that our policies treat the right to food as a right to local sovereignty, ensuring that the people closest to the land have the authority to decide how it is used and what is grown upon it,” she stated.
Similarly, the Deputy Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Mariann Bassey-Olsson, described seed-saving as an act of resistance, independence and cultural preservation.
She rejected the argument that industrial agriculture was the one viable means of feeding the world, pointing to the contributions of smallholder farmers who’ve sustained communities for generations.
According to her, preserving and exchanging indigenous seeds allows farmers to take care of management over their agricultural assets with out turning into depending on company seed possession and chemical-intensive manufacturing methods.
Bassey-Olsson stated conventional seed varieties represented generations of adaptation to native soils and weather conditions, making them helpful assets for resilient meals manufacturing.
“Food sovereignty begins and ends with the absolute freedom to save, exchange, and replant our own varieties. If we lose control of our seeds, we surrender our autonomy,” she stated.
HOMEF additional referred to as for larger funding in various native meals methods and improved entry to agricultural information and assets for smallholder farmers and marginalised communities.
The organisation urged a shift in direction of regenerative agricultural practices, significantly agroecology, which it stated may enhance soil well being, assist biodiversity, strengthen rural livelihoods and improve the dietary high quality of meals.
It additionally opposed what it described as false options to meals insecurity, together with genetic modification of crops, arguing that such applied sciences may threaten farmers’ management over seeds and enhance dependence on overseas firms.
The organisation maintained that future meals methods ought to prioritise dietary high quality, ecological sustainability and the financial wellbeing of native communities somewhat than focus narrowly on manufacturing volumes.
World Food Day, noticed yearly on October 16, seeks to boost consciousness of starvation and meals safety and promote entry to protected, nutritious and reasonably priced meals.
With this 12 months’s theme acknowledged as “Innovate Today” and “Nourish Tomorrow,” HOMEF stated efforts to safe the long run of meals should start with insurance policies that empower native farmers, shield agricultural biodiversity and recognise sufficient meals as a elementary human proper.
