Commissioner Identifies Threat To Food Security

Abia Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr Uche Enyioko says Nigeria’s quest to attain food security may be threatened by waste of available food through unwise consumption.

Enyioko told newsmen on Tuesday in Umuahia that “unless the waste pipes are blocked, our country may only labour in vain as we try to attain food security”.

According to the commissioner, efforts are only focused on food production without recourse to the usage of the ones already produced.

“As we aspire to produce enough for the teeming population, we should also ask ourselves how we have faired in the usage of the ones we have and then make a projection on how the situation will be in future,” he said.

Enyioko said that he had taken time to inspect some refuse dumps in the state and that from the survey carried so far “ more than 80 per cent of debris in our refuse sites are good food that were discarded for no just course’’.

“It is high time we re-orientated ourselves that food should not be used as status symbol and that people should only prepare the much they can finish at any given time,’ he said.

  The commissioner said that though there were no laws that restricted the masses on how they used their resources, but it was imperative that common sense guided all in some of the decisions that could have direct bearing on the economy.

He called for a synergy between government, NGOs, and religious bodies on the sensitisation of the public on the need to be temperate and cautious in executing actions that could impact positively on their lives.

  Enyioko said that the state Ministry of Agriculture had concluded arrangements to sensitise members of the public on the role they needed to play as the nation strove to attain food security.

“We have provided farm inputs and given other forms of encouragement to our farmers and this is the time to sensitise them  to avoid wasting what they have laboured for.

“As a country, we have the potential to be great and achieve whatever goal we set for ourselves, but we need the will and understanding to help government,” Enyioko said.