GOVERNANCE AND CHALLENGES OF FOOD SECURITY IN NIGERIA IN THE ERA OF ECONOMIC RECESSION IN EMERGING ECONOMIES

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to explore the impact of governance on food security challenges in Nigeria in the era of economic recession in an emerging economy. The paper relies essentially on secondary source of data. Achieving food security is central to a reduction in starvation and hunger as well as attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Food security has been conceptualized in different but complementary ways. The World Bank defined food security as a condition where everyone has access to sufficient food to live a healthy and productive life. As the world population increases, the need to feed more people becomes a serious issue that attracts the attention of virtually all on the planet earth but in different perspectives that has a unique description with relevance to the people, environment and general survival of the system. A broad based definition of food security is when all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet dietary needs for a productive and healthy life. Food security is the access of man to affordable, healthy, good and quality food without restrictions. In addition to growth in population, the attendant challenges of hunger and hardship experienced by people as a result of gloomy economy and the indirect effect which increase in taxation VAT inclusive and closure of border is manifested on the quality of life which people lived. Most of these identified factors are subsumed in the ability or inability of the government to deliver good governance to the citizens. It is in the realization of the long term effects of some or all of the aforementioned factors on the people that prompted this research topic. The paper therefore examined the impact of governance on food security in Nigeria.