Africa 2100: how to feed Nigeria in 2100 with 800 million inhabitants
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Africa 2100: how to feed Nigeria in 2100 with 800 million inhabitants Victor Olowe
Received: 17 April 2020 / Accepted: 4 May 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Land is the most important natural resource critical to agriculture in Africa. Out of 54 countries in Africa, Nigeria is the most populous (> 190 million) and the seventh largest in the world in 2017 with an annual population growth rate of 2.7%. Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa and the revenue from oil is not properly channeled towards the development of the nation’s agriculture and non-oil sectors. Oil exploration comes with its attendant problems. Consequently, the country drifted into the status of lower-middle-income status in 2014 far behind other oil-exporting countries with about 110 million (57%) of the population living below the poverty line. About 36.4% of the population is experiencing moderate-severe food insecurity. The population of the country had been predicted to reach 800 million in 2100 with the implication that there will be more demand for food to be produced on limited crop land (Rahmann et al. Org Agric 10:9–21, 2019). The projected land area to be available per person for farming in 2100 under medium assumption is only 504 m2 as against 2,100 m2 in 2019. In a bid to start addressing the impending food crisis, this paper discusses Nigeria’s population dynamics, available land per person to produce food, vegetables and fruits, and strategies to attain sustainable food and nutrition security in 2100.
V. Olowe (*) Institute of Food Security, Environmental Resources and Agricultural Research (IFSERAR), Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB), Abeokuta, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected]
Keywords Food . Land area . Landless food . Nigeria . Policy . Population
Introduction Nigeria is located in West Africa and occupies a land area of 923.768 km2. The country is bordered by Benin Republic, Niger, Chad, Cameroun, and a coastline of 853 km. Nigeria lies between latitudes 4° and 14° N, and longitudes 2° and 15° E with about 263 billion cubic meters of water and two of the largest rivers in Africa namely Rivers Niger and Benue (FESAN and FDD 2014). The population of Nigeria is estimated to be > 190 million and the country ranked 152nd out of 188 countries in terms of Human Development Index (HDI) as at 2019 (Anon 2019a). The nation’s total agricultural land is 91 million ha out of which 71 million is arable land, and only 40 million is under cultivation (the United Nations 2017a). This is against the estimated land area of 78.5 million ha of land required for farming to feed Nigeria’s growing population (Anon 2019b). Presently, over 50% of Nigerians live in the rural areas and the nation’s economy is highly dependent on agriculture which provides employment for about 70% of the population and contributes approximately 21% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as reported by PwC (2019). The contribution of agriculture into the GDP has not improved markedly in the last decade partly because of in
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