This is an existential threat to the realization of shared socioeconomic development aims as enshrined in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). Throughout Nasarawa and the entire Nigeria and Africa, market days are usually busy days. A stroll across the different market stalls in any part of the country or continent, will reveal a variety of food products, in abundant quantities ,all this are under the serious threat of climate change including also the unsold food that will be classified as post-harvest losses which end up rotten and hence unconsumable.

Reversing these post-harvest losses to create income opportunities is of vital importance to counter the antic­ipate shrinking income revenues as a result of climate change. It is this glaring opportunity for transformation that will ensure homes are food secure, of ensuring we create incomes to the youth and combat climate change.

As a continent, we lose food worth $48 billion each year as postharvest losses (PHLs), because of failing to add value. That cassava or tomato rotting on the ground in the market, could have been converted to dried cassava or dried tomato, and provided much needed calories, vitamins and minerals to a hungry, dying child. The process of preserving and converting this tomato or cassava into a value-added product could have engaged the youth and created incomes in various enterprises – be it fabricating solar dryers, packaging, marketing – you name it. And all this achieved without piling emissions that compound climate change. Nigeria losses billions in PHLs. For example, while the country is the second largest producer of tomatoes in Africa, it loses up to 60% of what is produces, averaging over $70 million each year – largely because of inadequate processing.

Up to $1billion each year is spent importing tomato and tomato paste – leading to market opportunities that would have created enterprises locally, being taken up by others. In 2017, Nigeria lost tomato valued at $15 bil­lion. Tomato is not the only loss. In cassava, where Nigeria is the largest producer globally, up to $400 million is lost each year as PHLs. Rice registers up to $155 million in PHLs. And the list goes on. Because of these losses, iconic polices like the cassava bread policy and the tomato production policy – meant to safeguard Nigeria’s producers – fail to be meaningfully implemented and realized.

Full implementation of these policies can create hundreds of thousands of much needed jobs. Currently in Nigeria, nearly 25% of the general population is unemployed, 20% is underemployed and over 50% of youth aged 15 – 35 years are without work. Solutions to these challenges call on us all to combine efforts. Nasarawa kingdom there­fore seeks to create formidable agro-value addition channels and youth enterprises through an enterprise perspec­tive to act as a buffer against the predicted effects of climate change. The Emir of Nasarawa is therefore leading the push from the front to actively take up action to highlight the menace.

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