Biotechnology and the Food Security Question in Nigeria

Abstract

In this paper, biotechnology is narrowed down to all aspects of it that can boost food production and prevent hunger. Food security in a country is defined as a situation where majority of its population have access to food of adequate quantity and quality consistent with decent existence at all times while food insecurity on the other hand is seen as lack of access to enough food which can be either chronic or temporary. The backsliding of a situation of food security in Nigeria in the pre-colonial era to the current situation of food insecurity was traced to inconsistencies in and ineffectiveness of agricultural policies of successive governments since independence. Biotechnological techniques in the agricultural sector that have the potentials to rescue the food insecurity situation is divided into three fields: crop production (microbial inoculation of plants), livestock production and food processing. The paper highlights certain unresolved problems in agricultural biotechnology techniques and stresses that research attention in Nigeria must be focused on the purification of local biotechnology processes in food processing and production of beverages. It is suggested that application of modern biotechnology in the areas of crop and livestock production should be intensified bearing in mind the limitations of modern biotechnological techniques such as: tissue culture, genetic engineering and solid state fermentation. These limitations are identified as technical problems, high cost of operation and inability to ensure sustainability. The idea that biotechnology is the magic bullet solution to all of agriculture’s ills is considered untrue while empirical evidence is provided on the fact that the prevalence of hunger in a country has nothing to do with the size of the human population. Examples of sparsely populated and hungry nations are provided. It is stressed that enough food is being produced for the world’s teeming population, but food insecurity exists in many countries due to poverty, inequality and lack of access to food. The paper urges Nigeria and other developing countries to, as a matter of priority and expediency, identify areas of appropriate biotechnology that could be improved upon in synergy with sustainable biotechnology so as to evolve a sustainable agricultural system which is ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially responsible.