HONEY BEES AS FOOD, HEALTH AND WEALTH PROVIDERS

Human’s attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular, those goals on poverty alleviation, health and food security may perhaps be a Herculean task to accomplish except we give premium awareness to the important supportive roles of honey bees in MDGs.

To the uninitiated honey bees are insects to be feared, run away from or killed at the slightest encounter before they sting. But apiculturists (bee keepers,) scientists and nutritionists through practical demonstration, on-going research and breakthroughs are daily exposing our collective ignorance of the values that bees can add to our life. The growing interest in bee keeping especially in developed countries is indicative of the health potentials and hidden treasure of these social insects that are still minimally discovered here in Nigeria.

Apart from the indispensable role of honey bees in agriculture, horticulture and pollination, apiculturists keep bees in small or commercial quantity for food and economic products derived from bees which include honey, beeswax, bee pollen and propolis. These environment friendly products are of immense health and commercial values and a source of family income in many homes globally.

Take for instance; honey nourishment value in human diet is yet to be surpassed by any food or food supplements. Honey derived from bees consists of 80% simple sugars (fructose and sucrose) that are readily absorbed by the body. Components of natural honey from bees include: water 17-18, fructose 38-39, glucose 30-32, sucrose 0.5-1.0, other sugars 9-10, protein 0.5-1.0, energy 318-321Kcal and trace minerals, vitamins, amino acids and enzymes.

Apart from its direct food values, natural honey is also used in confectionery as sweetener, in the homes as first aid treatment for cough and other throat ailments, and as preventive or curative for several ailments such as measles, gastro-intestinal disturbances and diarrhea among other mild ailments. Because of its very high dietary value and safety, honey is now widely consumed in many homes in preference to refined sugar that has been proved to have side effects which can be injurious to human health. Honey can be taken alone in small quantity, or added as sweetener to food like soaked garri, tea, cooked beans and added to kids food ration always.
Honey is predestined by God for the use of man. What apiculturists are doing is to bring the complete knowledge of bees to the fuller understanding of humans for economic and health advantage. The bible in Deut. 32:10-13 tells of how God used honey to nourish the Israelites in the desert “He found them in the desert land …. He nourished them with honey from the cliff”. John the Baptist survived on honey and locust as food in the wilderness while preparing the way for Jesus Christ, Mathew 3:4 “His food was locust and wild honey…”

With the current market price of quality honey at N1, 500 per litre, an average beekeeper with a harvest of five hundred litres of honey from his/her apiary is definitely going to smile to bank with satisfaction for good returns on investment.

Distinguishing pure honey from adulterated one has been a disincentive for consumers and potential consumers of honey because the market is flooded with impure concoction tagged honey. But according to Dr Bola Osipitan, a lecturer at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, (UNAAB), and a renowned apiculturist who has just organized a workshop for youth on beekeeping, honey wax processing and utilization in Abeokuta, Ogun State, identifying quality honey is essentially determined by the integrity of the source of the honey you want to buy. While admitting that the source might be imitated with label, he however gave clue on how to differentiate high quality honey that is good for consumption. These are: when a stick of matches is dipped into pure honey, it ignites when struck on a match box, when a tint of pure honey is poured into a glass of water, it does not dissolve immediately but sink to the bottom before dissolving, and of course, the taste, flavour colour and smell of honey is distinct.

Many useful medical and livestock care products have also been produced from other honeybees’ products such as royal jelly, bee pollen and propolis. Royal jelly and bee pollen have been proved by many research centers to aid fertility in humans while propolis from bees is a major ingredient in some anti-biotic drugs. At a seminar jointly organized by Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI) and Bee Conservation Project (BCP) in 2007 in Lagos, some livestock farmers, specifically catfish and pig farmers openly gave testimonies to the efficacy of propolis in livestock fertility, reproduction and in the healing process of sick pigs.

The demand for honey and other bee products is huge and the current global and national supply is grossly inadequate hence making any investment in beekeeping worthwhile either as part or full time vocation. All it takes for you is to first develop the interest in bees as your selfless and harmless (provided you obey their rules) companions in wealth creation and raise money to set up your own apiary where you can keep your own bee hives. Watch your money grow as the bees after gathering nectar and pollen from many plants colonize your hives to deposit the valuable honey, bee pollen, proplis, bee wax and other products. According to Dr Osipitan, harvesting of honey can start 3 to 4 weeks after placing your hives in the apiary if it is during the honey flow period which varies between December and March in tropical region like Nigeria. The rest period for bees is normally the end of the honey flow and this falls between April and June while the build-up season when the broods are raised is July to August.

With just a sum of ten thousand naira to construct two hives you can start beekeeping if you have a plot of land in rural area to use as your apiary or contact a rural farmer who can allow you place your hives near his farm if it is bees’ friendly site. If you want to start on a medium scale with at least ten hives, you need up to eighty thousand naira and the profit can be as high as one hundred and thirty thousand naira at the end of the second season harvest. However, contact reputable apiculturists for guidance and professional advice for maximum satisfaction. Government, in particular, the local government can assist their people like farmers with fund to earn additional income and generate employment through conscious government interest in beekeeping. Beekeeping alone fetches the US an average of $50b annually. Nigeria can do better.

Adeola Soetan
Project Executive
Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI)
feed-nigeria.blogspot.com
fenitiative@yahoo.com
08037207856

PASTOR T.B. JOSHUA, RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS AND FOOD SECURITY

Of recent, I watched a telecast of Pastor T.B. Joshua’s Synagogue Church on AIT. The cleric has really added some weight and his preaching imbued with more finesse compared to the last time I watched him on TV months back. The segment that really struck me in the programme was when trucks were moving into the church premises to off load tons of rice, and the pastor with his flock including nationals from other countries including Europe and America started re-bagging the rice to 25kg size with the church branded polymer bags. Pronto, the bags of rice were distributed free of charge to hundreds of the poor, to the ensemble of the physically challenged and the needy church members.

This is direct food aid in practical demonstration and a commendable step towards aiding food security. It is the most genuine of miracles. But I noticed those tons of rice were imported brands and not produced in Nigeria by Nigerian farmers or by the church. This is the crux of my discussion today: how religious organizations, particularly, those with large congregation and vast influence like churches and Islamic groups can get involved in direct food production, distribution and of course, consumption to generate employment, empower the people and advance food security in the country.

Needless to say that without food security there can never be national security, faith organizations of various hue and philosophy have a role to play without losing track of whatever they profess. Since religious organizations now invest in education, stock and other trades, investing in agriculture should not be an exception.

I grew up in a farm and church estate, Olaogun Estate, in Ibadan in the 1970’s. Owned by an uncle, Pastor S.O.Bamgbose, the now defunct Olaogun farm, which was essentially a vast poultry farm of hundreds of hectares of land, was then reputed to be the second largest farm in Nigeria, after Ashamu farm in Oyo. Although the farm was established before the church, however, the foundation of the white garment church which attracted members from far and wide helped to expand the farm and the estate tremendously as more people who came for soul deliverance were gainfully employed to work on the farm and hundreds of others settled for residual farm businesses and corresponding trading activities. The stimulating experience I gained in agriculture as a juvenile living in the estate with my parents was partly responsible for my choice of agriculture as a course of study in the university notwithstanding that I had worked for a decade as a broadcast media practitioner before proceeding to the university.

I still leave with the sweet memories of the estate’s camaraderie, of the abundant availability of chicken and eggs that families used to buy at very cheap rates, of the well fed children roaming the estate and ending up in the church in ecstasy after consuming protein rich meals that every family could easily afford. The farm, the church and the people were in harmony to the glory of God

Food security is a biological, socio-economic, cultural and political issue which cannot and should not be left alone to individuals to resolve. It is a collective responsibility of all, government, societies, organized private sectors, religious organizations, the media, NGO’s, and the global communities among the rest.

Religious organizations for example church can get involved in food production and poverty alleviation in many ways. They can acquire hundreds of hectares of farmland and distribute to members according to commodity groups. This means that the interested members are divided into areas of competence and interests such as poultry, piggery, fish farming and crop cultivation of different kinds.

With good internal administrative mechanism of the church, loans can be sought from microfinance banks guaranteed by the church, and fund can also be obtained from donor agencies locally and internationally. The church itself can go directly into mechanized integrated farming as a commercial venture and employ competent skilled and unskilled workforce from the congregation and outside the church. The church can also serve as donor/support agency to small and medium scale farmers in their midst by assisting farmers like in acquiring improved seeds and donating farm equipment. The church can as well make available soft loan dedicated to farming to members who are practicing and intending farmers. Other options can be considered to enhance food security and members’ empowerment.

Marketing of the products and profitability is not likely to pose much problem as many of these organizations have huge memberships who are potential consumers and marketers running into several thousands apart from the consuming public. Their branches can also be used as sale outlets nationwide. I look forward to see in the foreseeable future in the market farm products like ‘Winners Yam Flour’, ‘Nasfat Broilers’, ‘Redeemers Eggs’, ‘Latter Rain Catfish’, ‘Synagogue Rice’, ‘Quareb Bread’, ‘Baptist Farm Plantation’ ‘Anglican Cattle Ranch’ and Bagged Gari from Living spring among others. It would be fulfilling and Nigerians would be happier for it.

Through my programme association with the Justice Development and Peace Commission, (JDPC), I am aware that the catholic mission is effectively making use of the JDPC as an outreach to assist small and medium scale farmers in terms of inputs support, organization and extension services to enhance farmers income through higher yields.

This is the path for other religious groups to follow and do more to agriculture in order to save more souls from the pang of hunger and starvation.

Adeola Soetan
Project Executive
Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI)
fenitiative@yahoo.com
08037207856

MASS MEDIA, AGRICULTURAL LOANS AND FOOD SECURITY

There is renewed media blitz on the availability of different forms of agricultural credit facilities to farmers in the country. These agricultural loans being advertised come in different modes from different sources. The purported loans are branded by state and federal governments, agencies and banks among others. The various credit facilities include; agricultural credit guarantee scheme funds, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) facilitated farmer’s loans, agricultural loans from the Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB) and from several state government agencies. Others are the N50 billion consolidated fund from the Bankers Committee, the World Bank assisted agric. credit programmes, etc...

Despite the good intention of these programmes, the reality is that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for farmers to access these loans. Institutionalized corruption, stringent conditions attached to these credits, farmers’ reluctance to come forward and access the facilities, farmers’ ignorance and low level of education are some of the reasons adduced for the failure of various credit schemes. Anyhow we perceive it; this inability is a setback to food security and agricultural development, and the relevant bodies saddled with the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of the various credit facilities seem unbothered or are simply overwhelmed with the intractable problem.

Each time there is a new agricultural credit programme, most farmers are always apprehensive and reluctant to believe that it is genuine or reliable partly due to their unpalatable past experiences. This difficulty is aptly captured by the former president Olusegun Obasonjo, under whose regime many agric. credit facilities were initiated without appreciable success, when he once wrote in his letter to the senate lamenting the low level of farmers’ access to the bankers’ N50 billion agricultural credit funds. He reported in September 2005 that only N7.1 billion was accessed with only 389 applicant farmers throughout the country ten months after the scheme was inaugurated.

This infinitesimal fraction of millions of credit needed farmers is indicative and instructive of the wholesale problem of agricultural credit schemes in Nigeria. The problem is complicated because no serious organizational structure is put in place to evaluate initial credit facilities before new ones are initiated and there is lack of synchronization of schemes by different loans agencies of government and private sector initiatives.

Food security is the central plank of the millennium development goal one of reducing to half the population of hungry people globally by the year 2015. It would remain a figment of the imagination for Nigeria to achieve this without sustainable agricultural development.

Availability and accessibility of agricultural credits with negligible interest rates is non negotiable for this goal achievement if we are indeed serious to join the league of MDG’s compliant nations.

Prior to the ‘70s, various regional governments initiatives were put in place to make credit available to farmers particularly the micro, small and medium scale ones to complement commercial banks, the oldest credit institutions in the country.

In 1949, the Western Nigeria Development Board took over responsibility for farm credit supply in Western Nigeria and in 1955 the Western Region Finance Corporation took over the administration of credit to farmers. The repayment percentage of 49 percent for individual loans was recorded while 64 percent was recorded for co-operatives, suggesting the desirability of lending to the co-operatives.

The Eastern Nigeria provided credit to its farmers through the Fund for Agricultural and Industrial Development (FAID) established in 1950. The Northern region administered credit by the Registrar of Co-operatives under which government guaranteed loans from the defunct Barclays Bank with the ministry of agriculture operating a credit programme through the native authorities. Over all lending to groups were more successful than to individual farmers in terms of repayment.

In 1973, the Nigerian Agriculture and Credit Bank (NACB) was established by the federal government with the core objective of providing loans for the development of the Nigerian agriculture to lend to individual farmers, co-operative societies and for integrated rural development projects. NACB was later developed into the Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank Limited (NACRDB) in the year 2000. It is a product of NACB, Peoples Bank of Nigeria (PBN) and risk asset of the Family Economic Advancement Programme. (FEAP)
World Bank sponsored Credit Scheme is another global concern for the development of agriculture in developing economy including Nigeria in the ‘80s. The Agricultural Development Project (ADP) is one of the World Bank – Nigeria sponsored counterpart programmes to organize and finance small scale agriculture with territorial specification to the local farmer needs and assistance. Spread across the states of the federation, the project collapsed mainly because of the failure of the state and federal government to fulfill their counterpart financial obligation to the project. Again the hope of agricultural transformation was dashed. The ADP remains a carcass of its glorious past today having lost steam

The Obasanjo regime 1999 – 2007 witnessed a lot of presidential initiatives on agriculture such as cassava revolution, cocoa rehabilitation programme, fadama 1 & 2 projects and various others with the intention to increase output and farmers income but as usual failed to achieve the desired results because of lack of back up credit facilities to farmers to expand business among other sundry reasons.

Nowadays it will be very difficult for any new farmers’ credit scheme to succeed and be credible notwithstanding the good intention because farmers have been disappointed and deceived several times. Many farmers’ groups have been destroyed and disbanded because of the inability of members to obtain loans despite their leaders good efforts to organize them and satisfy all conditions for credit access from government agencies, yet to no avail.
Loans to medium and small scale farmers should still be properly channeled through their associations and cooperatives in their local government areas to avoid giving money only to big time farmers, politicians and hangers on.

The mass media as watch dog should be able to monitor, not only reporting the various over publicized agricultural credit schemes, but revisit the schemes to ascertain the authenticity of the loans and verify from some of these beneficiaries, while the NGO’s in food security advocacy should monitor budget allocations and implementation on agriculture, processes of access and repayment of agricultural loans. But because of media orientation in Nigeria which gives premium coverage to politics and politicians and often ignore crucial developmental issues due to the structure of ownership and control mechanism, governments and their agencies saddled with responsibilities of developing agriculture failed woefully to deliver on their promises.

Since the right to food is fundamental human right of every one, any responsible government should facilitate the processes of mass production of, and peoples access to food and this can better be facilitated when farmers, particularly in the peasant and medium scale bracket have unlimited and timely access to revolving agricultural credit facilities with less noisy media propaganda of some of these loan programmes.


Adeola Soetan
Project Executive
Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI)
fenitiative@yahoo.com
08037207856

FENI seeks law to improve pupils’ nutrition

Group seeks law to improve pupils’ nutrition
12/12/2008
The Nation Newspaper

Dimeji Bankole Speaker, House of Representatives

Stories by Oluwakemi Dauda Business Correspondent
The Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has sent a bill for a law to establish an agency to cater for the nutrition of school children to the House of Representatives.
FENI Project Coordinator Mr Adeola Soetan told reporters in Abeokuta, Ogun State, that the bill, dated October 24, was submitted through the House Committee on Agriculture.
Soetan said the bill is to identify with the Umaru Yar’Adua administration’s bid to make Nigeria food secure, achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in agriculture and reduce, by half, the poverty level and hunger by 2015.
Soetan explained that "if the bill is passed, the School Children Nutrition Agency will ensure optimum free nutrition per school day for pupils in public and government-assisted private schools."
He said the bill will:
• promote the right of more children, particularly, the vulnerable to adequate nutrition by reducing hunger among school children;
• boost school attendance to facilitate the objectives of the Universal Basic Education programme;
• attain optimum mental and physical development of pupils by consuming the recommended minimum protein intake per child per day through the school midday meal;
• increase and guarantee demand for agricultural produce such as cereals, eggs, fish, milk and meat to encourage commercial agriculture, agricultural processing and value addition to increase profitability of farmers;
• provide more skilled jobs as food vendors, cereals suppliers etc;
• build capacity for food processors and other stakeholders in the food chain for all food safety concepts such as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP); and
• comply with the right to food policy enshrined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, and 1996 Rome Declaration on World Food Security to which Nigeria is a signatory.
Soetan noted that
• Nigerian children are vulnerable to hunger.
His words: "The Nigerian child is hunger-vulnerable because of the dwindling family and household incomes occasioned by job losses, growing unemployment and adverse government policies. Most parents are incapable of feeding their children well and this result in malnutrition, disease prevalence and reduction in mental ability of children.
"This grinding poverty and inability to provide food for children has also resulted in a sharp drop in school enrolment. The intervention of government at different levels in providing adequate food to vulnerable groups like disadvantaged school pupils will alleviate the burden.
"It falls within the constitutional and social responsibilities of government. Governments must facilitate actions that will strengthen access to food; and when people are unable to realise the right to food for reasons beyond their control, governments must provide the means to do so. The bill is to make government more responsive to this responsibility."
Soetan cited comparative examples of some countries with sustained free nutrition for school pupils and constitutional framework to sell his idea.
• In Brazil, a school feeding programme provides meals to 37 million children as part of the county’s Zero Hunger programme initiated by President Luiz Lula da Silva. As of 2005, the programme had a budget of $46 billion. In India, the mandatory mid-day school meal programmme for all children in government and government-assisted primary schools is the largest school meal programme in the world serving more than free 50 million cooked meals daily,
• South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution of 1994 pledges in its bill of rights: "Everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water…" It specifies that the state has to provide for the right of every child to adequate nutrition.
"The precarious position of Nigeria as one of the food- insecure countries in the world makes this scheme imperative. The country can afford to feed her school children and in deed all children with good, nutritious and safe food free of charge.
"We passionately appeal to the national assembly to expedite action on this private initiated bill and also call on stakeholders in food enterprise and all people of good conscience to support the bill," he said.
Soetan concluded by promising that a national sensitisation campaign will commence soon for the realisation of this noble objective.

Food security: FENI points way forward

Food security: Group points way forward
31/10/2008

The Nation Newspaper


By Oluwakemi DaudaBusiness Correspondent

Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI), a non-governmental organisation has urged the Federal Government to invest more in agriculture to ensure food security.
The group spoke in Lagos during the World Food Day.
It said the country lacks co-ordinated actions and the political will to adhere to international standard on food security, to enable it cope with her food insecurity problems. The problems stemmed from institutionalised corruption and inconsistent agricultural programmes and policies.
Speaking with reporters, the Project Executive, Mr Adeola Soetan, said the World Food Day marked the sixth decade of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and that the Right to Food was specifically recorgnised in the charter.
He regretted that the neglect of agriculture in the last 30 years has caused serious inflation.
He said: " The World Food Day (WFD) is celebrated every year across the globe to commemorate the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in 1945.
The World Food Day aims at heightening public awareness to the plight of the hungry and malnourished and to encourage people and governments worldwide to take action against hunger. It was first observed in 1981.
"It is instructive to note that the 2008 commemoration of World Food Day also marks the six decades of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. The right to food was formally recognised in the Declaration.
"Article 25 of the Declaration specifically pledges the right to food: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and family including food," he said.
Soeta said: "This inalienable right was further entrenched by various agenda of actions and international resolutions among others. For instance, the right to food is included in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and came into force in 1976.
A total of 156 countries including Nigeria have ratified the declaration to date. Article 11 of the Covenant "recognises the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living … including adequate food" and fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger..." The right was elaborated in 1999 with General Comment 12 by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which oversees implementation of the Covenant. It states that the rights to adequate food is realized "when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate or means for its procurement," he noted.
The right to food, he said, "was further reaffirmed by the 13 November, 1996 Rome Declaration on World Food Security. A commitment was made at the World Food Summit in 1966 to reduce by half, the number of undernourished people by 2015, and Millennium Development Goal One, to reduce by half the proportion of people afflicted by extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
He said since then: "The global attention has been generated to free the world from hunger, particularly from international pro-food development agencies. Advocacy programmes were drawn to put persistence pressure on governments to be responsible and responsive to the plight of the world hungry people put at 1.2 billion. To be food-secure means food must always be available and accessible to all for active and healthy life. And it falls within the constitutional and social responsibility of government to guarantee this through good policy formulation and programme implementation.
"While individuals must to realise their rights to food, governments that have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have three levels of obligations. They must :respect the right: meaning they cannot take any action that would prevent people from realising their right to food, protect the right, meaning they have to ensure that no one deprives anyone else
Fulfill the right in two ways; governments must facilitate actions that will strengthen people’s access to and use of resources; and when people are unable to realise the right to food for reasons beyond their control, governments must provide the means to do so.
"As humane and people serving these various global concerns to free the world from hunger seem, the antithesis to the right to food is the entrenchment of pro-business class global capitalism and anti- poor neo-liberal economic policies adopted by governments of most countries which in the least takes food and its access away from the people.
The growing regime of world poor and hunger vulnerable people is as a result of governments abdicating their responsibilities for profit- motivated business class to own the state in the name of privatization, trade liberalization, devaluation, retrenchment of workers and shift from real sector investment to service and portfolio investment/ speculative financial investment. The attendant negative social effects are impoverishment of the working class, job loss, dwindling national and house hold income.
"While the advanced capitalist countries have social safety nets to alleviate suffering of their vulnerable population to ensure their fair right to food, the dogmatic "follow-follow" leaders of developing countries always consume the IMF/World Bank bitter economic pills, hook, line and sinker, and expose agriculture and other real productive sectors to the unfavourable market forces without intervention and protection.
"Take for instance, while developed nations encourage developing countries through WTO treaties to cut subsidies on agriculture, they on their own do subsidize agriculture in their countries to the tune of 1billion Euro per day to protect their farmers and stabilize prices of agricultural products against market fluctuations.
"Nigeria lacks the co-ordinated actions and the political will to adhere to international standard in order to grapple with her food insecurity problems because of institutionalized corruption and disjointed agricultural policies and programmes. Even less endowed countries like Bolivia, Uganda, Mozambique, Mali, Nepal, Guatemala, Indonesia, Brazil, India and South Africa are far ahead of Nigeria in designing a road map and legislations to achieve food security and steadily advancing to realize the MDG One by 2015.
"The right to food has also been formally recognized in the constitutions of some of these countries. South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution of 1994 pledges in its bill of rights: "Everyone has the right to have access to sufficient food and water…" It specifies that the state has to provide for the right of every child to adequate nutrition. Efforts are also under way to develop a legislative framework for the right to food.
"In India, the mandatory mid-day school meal programmme for all children in government and government-assisted primary schools is the largest school meal programme in the world serving more than free 50 million cooked meals daily, while in Brazil, a school feeding programme provides meals to 37 million children as part of the county’s Zero Hunger programme initiated by President Luiz Lula da Silva. As of 2005, the programme had a budget of US46 billion. These are instances of coordinated government food aids intervention to ensure food security and right to food by the disadvantaged.
"Before Nigeria could be food–secure, the nation must fully explore the comparative advantage of her agricultural endowment. Transform her agriculture from the "slash and burn" subsistence to technological driven agriculture. There should be massive government intervention in terms of subsidies, credit guarantee, provision of storage and processing facilities to enhance farmers’ income and citizens’ rights to adequate food at all times", he said.
According to him, "the media and civil society groups must champion the advocacy to have citizens’ rights to food properly legislated and entrenched in the constitution since food security is sine qua non to national security".
The group the said, will soon launch the campaign with others to advocate for this legislation to formally guarantee Nigerians unfettered fundamental rights to food.

Welcome

You are welcome to this special blog of the Feed Nigeria Initiative (FENI). It is indeed special as it discusses food, the numero uno basic need of life, in relation to the most populous black nation on earth, Nigeria and globally.

FENI is a non-government organisation founded in 2001 with organisation mandate convering food security, agriculture and rural development in Nigeria, Africa and globally. To acheive a world free of hunger, FENI advances this mission through Research and Publication, Multimedia approach (TV, Radio and Print Media), Capacity Building Programmes, Agric Extension Services and other metheods of advocacy to help farmers particularly the poor to acheive optimal yield and enhance people's access to food.

We invite you to join us in making a world that is food secure.


Thanks

Adeola Soetan
Project Executive
08037207856, 08074581618

Welcome