Comment: Climate change effects on food security

President of the Society of Landscape Architects of Nigeria, Niyi Kehinde, analyzes the effects of climate change on African food production. Kehinde observes that a couple of countries have already experienced a decrease of rainfall that is attributed to the climate change theory. We found Kenhinde's analysis at All Africa.

The topical issue now is the alarm raised on food shortage. Africa indeed is in trouble. Africa has been a continent of drought in parts for decades. Climate change may in fact be the last straw that will break the camels back. This is so because food supplement from other lands may not be readily available any more due to global shortage. Can Africa indeed survive the onslaught of global food shortage and global warming. Here is the answer.

"Because of its poverty, its dependence on locally grown food, recurrent droughts and floods, the civil unrest and political instability of failed states and diseases like malaria and AIDS pandemic, parts of Africa are in crisis or live on the edge of crisis. Global warming will make coping with these problems worse in some cases much worse"(EEN)

Since Africa largely depends on rain fed agriculture for her existence, any disruption in the amount of rainfall available to Africa will definitely spell doom.

The reality though scary, is that global warming (climate change) has been projected to reduce rainfall in even areas now known as water-scare environment by between 5% - 20%.

Countries like Niger, Chad, Sudan, Burkina Faso are definitely endangered already. The situation will be exacerbated if further reduction in these countries are experienced.

Countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana are already bearing a lot of burden on behalf of the sub-Saharan countries. This writer believes that until a country like Nigeria includes Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso in her food budget and production, she (Nigeria) will continue to experience the hunger -induced influx of citizens of the named countries in to Nigeria. Now that food scarcity is predicted for the next decades, how many of these 'aliens' will Nigeria support. The Xenophobia going on in South Africa has to do with the matter of the stomach. South Africans believe that foreigners especially Zimbabweans who flee their country to avoid hunger are dislocating them from their own livelihood. Africa has been described as a top notcher among the failed states of the world.