Ensuring food sufficiency is a sure way of reducing poverty especially in the rural areas where a bulk of the poor population resides. Several definitions have been given to food security. For some, it is access by all people at all times to enough food for an active life, for others, there is food security when people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, save and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
Regardless of one’s viewpoint, poverty and food insecurity is a real setback to any development agenda. Food productivity has over the years, faced many challenges, some of these challenges are financial, social, technological and environmental. With reference to the havoc that mismanagement of the environment has on food productivity, it is worthwhile indicating that today, about 70% of Africans rely on Agriculture and natural resources for part or all of their food incomes, yet, in many places, environmental degradation and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources threaten food productivity.
For instance, over the past half century, more than a quarter of the World’s 8.7 billion hectares of Agricultural land, pasture, forest and woodland has been degraded through mismanagement of the environment. It is also important to note that as result of mismanagement of fresh water resources, 70% of the fisheries in Africa are over-exploited.
Other principal environmental problems that have had negative impact on food production include depletion of our forest cover through indiscriminate bush burning and logging, inefficient waste management, coastal erosion and pollution of air, sea, and soil. Today, people in some parts of the country such as Northern Ghana are experiencing low food productivity as a result of unfavourable rainfall patterns. Unfortunately, as a Nation, we either forget or ignore the fact that the forest that we deplete with impunity is key in conserving moisture for rainfall, which is essential for crop production and providing water in streams and rivers for fish production.
Another issue that has had a negative impact on fish production is the dumping of industrial effluent into water bodies. Another activity which does a lot of harm to food production is mining. For instance illegal miners very often dig deep shafts in search of mineral deposits, after which they leave these holes without any attempt to salvage the land. The land therefore remains useless for any agricultural activity.
In other cases some multinational firms also refuse to reclaim land used for mining. They leak chemicals into water bodies, destroy animal life and render the soil unproductive. For food security to be assured there is the need for meaningful early warnings of natural calamities that have the tendency of serving as a hindrance to food productivity. It is worthwhile to note that to attain the millennium goal of halving poverty, comprehensive food and agricultural policies at National levels and strategic policy frameworks are indispensable.
The task of ensuring food security in Africa should no depend on Governments alone, but other interest groups and in fact all well-meaning Africans.
As a nation we will be able to tackle poverty through reducing household food insecurity and rural poverty by boosting food production and increasing the incomes of the rural poor. The challenges facing food productivity can be surmounted if as a nation, we are all pro-active in anticipating the challenges militating against food sufficiency and tackle them before they occur.
BY, DAVID OWUSU-AMOAH, P.R.O. MINISTRY OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE.
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