Nutrition: Why FG must promote sustainable agriculture by 2030
As the end of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs gradually approaches, nutritionists, and other stakeholders in the fight against malnutrition have urged government at all levels to bridge the gap between policy statements and implementation of the blueprint on nutrition.
The SDG 2 targets to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030. Stakeholders want these targets to be mainstreamed into the States and Local Governments.
The goal is also to ensure access by all, in particular the vulnerable, to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food all year round, but the current security challenges are a threat to food security.
During a webinar, entitled: ” The UN Decade of Action on Nutrition: Connecting the Dots for Nigeria”, a Social Development Expert, Foyinsola Oyebola who identified low level of awareness of the SDGs concerning Zero Hunger and poverty in Nigeria, also noted that the COVID-19 pandemic might have changed Nigeria’s direction in attainment of the SDGs.
Oyebola explained that although SDG 2 targets to end all forms of malnutrition, Nigeria, Nigeria was seriously faced with a high level of malnutrition and insecurity that has made farmers flee their farms.
If by 2025 Nigeria is to achieve the international targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, the country must address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons, as well as double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers among others.
Oyebola called for the democratisation of the SDGs even as she called for more coordination and collaboration amongst all stakeholders in the nutrition space to educate Nigerians on local sources of protein, where to get them and most importantly, how to prepare them such that the nutritional value is not lost, hence, the Nigerian Slogan – “Need no one behind” must be fully operational”
With a large percentage of Nigerians being farmers, she stressed the need for sustenance of agriculture and household incomes, to reduce poverty and improve nutrition.
