Food Scarcity: JDPMC Proffers Practical Solutions To Avert Looming Famine, Starvation

By Ayobami Agboola, Osogbo

According to a joint analysis in October 2020, by the World Food Program (WFP) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 20 countries are likely to face potential spikes in high acute food insecurity in the next three to six months as such require urgent attention.

The U.N. Agencies said that countries like Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria and Burkina Faso have some areas with critical hunger situations following years of conflicts, shocks, economic and environmental challenges, adding that any further deterioration in the coming months could lead to famine.

It is this dire need to save Nigeria from impending famine and starvation that an Osun based non governmental organisation, Justice Development and Peace Makers Centre (JDPMC),
a not-for-profit organization that supports rural farmers and partner rural communities to leverage their resources to address challenges that hamper the improvement of farm yields.

Perturbed by the negative effects of Covid-19 pandemic on the farming and the terrible experience and challenges which the rural farmers are currently facing due to climate change, JDPMC had on Thursday, December 3, 2020 organised training for hundreds of rural farmers with the sole aims of preparing them for what they may likely to encounter in the year to come as a result of climate change and effect of Covid-19.

At the one-day intensive training held at the Catholic Church Conference Hall, Oke Ayepe area, Osogbo, two resource persons with broadened experiences were invited to educate the rural farmers economic impact of COVID-19 on rural farming, erratic rain they experienced in year 2020 and to help them to plan ahead of the year 2021. The training also was to grow the capacity of the rural farmers through access to quality agricultural inputs, and building capacity across the public and private sectors.

Speaking on the nitty gritty of the gathering, the General Coordinator of JDPMC, Rev. Fr Peter Akinkunmi said that organization since its existence has been working to enhance food security in the rural communities as well as to contribute to the development of the rural areas.

General Coordinator of JDPMC, Rev. Fr Peter Akinkunmi

Akinkunmi further said that they were not just working with the farmers, just because they have any agenda with them but the intention and focus of their organization is development of the people rural communities.

He added that from their experience, they discovered that those people in the rural Communities usually are the least to benefit from public policy. He said they took it upon themselves to see what they can do to build up human capital to dwellers of rural Communities.

“Farm work especially rural farming, I think it’s necessary for us to state that all the foods that are producing locally in Nigeria around 80 percent of it are producing by rural farmers. Today rural farming is really facing serious challenge in Nigeria.

“The first problem is that , the population of rural farmers in Nigeria is ageing gradually, what I mean by this is that those who are engaging in rural farming are becoming old because the coming generation are no longer seeing any way forward in rural farming and the reason for this is lack of sufficient support coming from public sectors.

“A good number of them are beginning to discourage even their own children from engaging in farming because they have to go through a hard labour to get their work done. In our age, where there is technological advancement we feel it’s not right that the government is not giving adequate attention to this category of persons.

“People who are really working hard to ensure food security among us as a result of that many young people are turning away from rural farming . Second challenge that we are facing is climate change. The change in climate condition is putting serious difficulties to rural farmers v, most of these Persons are using traditional means, most of them have adapted to farming from the experience they have inherited from the past generations.

“Some of the those knowledge and experience are completely invalidated by the situation created by the climate change, so this is where JDPMC comes in. We are trying to reach them resilient practice in rural farming by JDPMC cannot do everything. Presently in Osun State, JDPMC is only known state actor that directly offers Consistent Agricultural Extension Services to farmers,” he said.

The JDPMC Coordinator maintained that the government must swing into action by ensuring they recruit and send much more rural extension service providers to the farmers in order to avert the looming famine in the country, adding that more initiatives should be developed to make technological means, machines and other farm inputs accessible to the farmers.

In her own contribution, Onaolapo Morenike, Head of Programme for Rural Development of JDPMC, said government has a lot of things to do, urging them to something about irrigation farming.

She said since the inception of the Programme JDPMC has reached out to about 119 Communities with more than 10, 000 farmers in Osun state, saying that the farmers’ livelihood has improved significantly.

Responding, one of the Farmers, Olawele Joshua who spoke with our Correspondent expressed gratitude to JDPMC for the training and various interventions from the organisations which he said would help farmers improve on their farm yields.