Yemisi Izuora
Worried by obvious signs of food shortages the ActionAid has announced a virtual press conference on the looming food crises in Nigeria and the implication of COVID-19 on food and agriculture.
The conference holds on Sunday, April 26,2020 at 4pm.
WHO– ActionAid Nigeria and the Small-Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) will be hosting the press conference aimed at calling Government attention to the continual loss of income and livelihoods in the agricultural sector especially for smallholder women farmers, arising from the continued lockdown and restriction of movement, while sharing recommendations to avert the looming food crisis amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
ActionAid observed that farmers are experiencing massive post-harvest losses of their products due to lack of access to markets. Poultry and livestock Farmers are faced with a lack of access to poultry feeds they usually buy. Fisheries and aquaculture farmers are also affected from the closure or low patronage of hotels and skeletal operations of restaurants.
Though this is a planting season but access to essential inputs for farming has been totally cut off for smallholder women farmers.
The High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HPLE) of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has recently recommended that all Government must support smallholder farmers and local communities through appropriate stimulus packages in cash or kind to enhance food resilience.
Interested participants can connect to Virtual audio-visual platform – Zoom https://zoom.us/j/94996566021