Climate Change and Food Security Issues

Food security can be defined as a situation where people have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritive foods that meet their dietary needs and preferences for an active and healthy life (Food and Agricultural Organisation 2018). It has four dimensions of availability, accessibility, utilisation and stability. Climate change has implications for food security in Northern Nigeria. Climate change has brought about increased frequency and severity of extreme events such as floods and droughts in Northern Nigeria and these have led to fluctuation in crop yields and food supplies. This is also in addition to high temperature all these have resulted in variations in the length of the growing season and in turn affected productivity, crop quality as well as prices. The reduction of the length of the growing season has forced areas of marginal agriculture out of production. Small scale farmers who are responsible for the largest portion of agricultural production are affected the most. When crop yield is of low quality it has implication for food utilisation. The decrease in production has also resulted in higher prices for food crops and related issues of availability and affordability. The poor yield of food crops can lead to malnutrition and infectious diseases. In recent times, in many parts of Northern Nigeria, tubers like yam and cassava if not processed immediately can be lost. These get rotten if not processed or consumed immediately. Reduction of production reduces availability of food. Climate change also increases the risk of food borne diseases. The rising temperature in the Northern part of Nigeria has implication for the survival of livestock, poor quality of livestock results in poor annual protein that is available for consumption. Also rising temperature affects the quality of fish produced. This has implication for health and the livelihood of fish farmers.