This week, I honored an invitation sent to me in November 2022. I was invited to make a keynote address at the 48th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Society for Plant Protection, tagged “Kano -NSPP 2023” with the title “Plant Health, Crop Improvement, and Sustainable Food Security in Nigeria”. I was hesitant about accepting the invitation but the caliber and personal relationship with the members of the organizing committee could not allow me to reject it. With all the eggheads in crop protection and plant science around, why invite me, an agricultural engineer to talk as a keynote speaker? I later realized the wisdom behind the invitation, someone outside the profession should tell the professionals, his impression, thoughts, and the impacts of the profession on society. It is also an opportunity to talk about the GMT, the question of safety, and so on. This opportunity came on Monday, 15th May 2023 when I faced over 200 participants in the Plant Protection Conference and presented my thoughts on GMT, Food Security, Biosafety law, and public discourse on GMT.
Browsing: Food security in Africa
A few years ago, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) rated eighty-six countries as low-income and food-deficient nations, thus, considered to be food insecure (http://www.fao.org/docrep/w9290e/w9290e01.htm). Forty-three out of these food-deficient countries are located in the African continent, which has a total of 58 countries. The most affected among the forty-three countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where chronic hunger, squalor, and abject poverty are widespread. This is despite overall gains recorded in food production and food security over a decade on a global scale.