A path to sustainable food security in Nigeria through mission-driven policy.

With the momentous Apollo 11 mission in 1969, President John F. Kennedy’s dream of setting foot on the moon was realized.

It brought together several industries—including aviation, technology, autos, telecommunications, electronics, and fashion—under NASA’s leadership in a joint effort.

Such missions, like Apollo 11’s flight to the moon and back, are examples of how to leverage cross-sector energies to accomplish national aims.

Managing food security is difficult

Food insecurity is a significant problem for African countries, one that has been made worse by the Ukraine crisis and the post-COVID environment.

Although the figures have always been concerning, they now have a greater significance. Incredibly, 278 million Africans, or 20% of the continent’s population, struggle with chronic hunger.

The rate is double the 10% average for the entire world. Regrettably, Africa seems to be losing ground in its effort to end hunger by 2030.

To make matters worse, by 2030, the continent’s food import costs might soar from the current $43 billion to an astounding $110 billion.

The problem is made even more difficult by the continent’s widespread currency depreciation. It is getting harder to find basic food items at reasonable prices.

Within the first year in the region, a little increase in currency depreciation of one percentage point is correlated with an increase in inflation of 0.22 percentage points.

The situation gets worse when the impending threat of climate change is added.According to McKinsey’s yield projections, Ethiopian wheat farmers will have an 11% increased chance of experiencing a yield decrease of 10% or more per year by 2030.

In 2030, the possibility of a 25% or greater decline in annual production for coffee producers may jump from 3.2% to 4.2%, representing an increase of 31% and a cumulative likelihood of 28% over the next ten years.

The GDP growth rate for the nation could be reduced as a result by roughly 3 percentage points. These difficulties are extremely problematic because sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP is mostly derived from agriculture.

Nigeria has developed a number of policies to achieve food security, including the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA) in 2012, the Agriculture Promotion Policy (APP) in 2016, and the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) in 2022.

Despite the diverse effects of these programs, the desired level of food security has not been attained.

According to recent data from the World Food Programme (WFP) for 26 Nigerian states in 2022, 34% of the population only consumes food that is minimally adequate and is in a strained food security scenario, while the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity rose by 5.4 million.

National missions versus industrial policies

The renowned Italian-American-British economist Mariana Mazzucato has promoted the idea of national missions as a potent catalyst for innovation and public policy.

She emphasizes the shift from conventional sector-specific policy corrections to a mission-oriented approach that focuses on achieving important national priorities in her influential books “The Entrepreneurial State” (2011) and “The Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism” (2021).

The direction of innovation policies in various areas is established by national missions. Consider the issue of food security in Nigeria.

It covers a variety of topics, such as agriculture, education, science and technology, trade, finance, infrastructure for transportation, and environmental concerns.

By coordinating these sectors to achieve a shared national priority—food security—rather than focusing on isolated sector-specific problems, enormous synergies and efficiencies can be produced.

In addition to using the distinctive capabilities of the public, commercial, and nonprofit sectors, this mission-focused policy approach also holds them responsible through open purpose metrics.

The effectiveness of missions in accomplishing national goals is demonstrated by historical examples. An important goal of the American industrial revolution was to increase agricultural output.

The use of enhanced seedlings in agriculture was the main motivator. The United States made use of its institutions, including the U.S. Navy, U.S. Patent Office, and U.S. Post Office, to complete its objective.

The Patent Office handled rights management, the Navy imported necessary seeds, and the Postal Service distributed them to farmers via the mail system.

The U.S. Patent Office was the driving force for the creation of a national agriculture research bureau.

The Agricultural Department of the Patent Office was established in 1839 in response to this request by the U.S. Congress, and it later changed its name to the Department of Agriculture in 1862.

The Morrill Act of 1862, which distributed federal property to each state for the founding of colleges with a concentration on agriculture, technical skills, military training, and classical studies, serves as an illustration of the importance of education to the purpose.

The Morrill Act allowed for the planting of previously unobtainable seed kinds on more than three-quarters of the nation’s wheat acres by 1919.

These historical instances highlight the ability of national missions to address pressing issues, spur innovation across industries, and ultimately influence the future of nations.

Transformation of the food system is the goal but not the path.

For agricultural missions, the food systems transformation strategy acts as a strategic road map. Food systems transformation may not be a compelling national priority on its own, but it provides a useful framework for coordinating various initiatives in order to achieve mission goals.

The overarching objectives for attempts to reform the food system are provided through missions.

Fulfilling national missions and bringing it home

The Nigerian government has recently stepped up its attention to food security by identifying it as a major goal under the control of the National Security Council (NSC).

This action, designed to manage spikes and dips in food availability, emphasizes the pressing need for a comprehensive strategy.

Dele Alake, the presidential spokesperson, stressed the value of collaboration between the Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources while underlining irrigation’s significance in year-round food production.

A National Commodity Board will also be established by the government, tasked with keeping an eye on food prices and managing a strategic food reserve to keep them stable.

Although these actions are beneficial in the near term, they are typical examples of public policy because they correct market imperfections without influencing the market’s development.

A different strategy is required to establish sustained food security and to properly secure the future of the food ecosystem.

The creation of an Office of National Priorities (ONP) within the Presidency is one suggestion.

Through a thorough top-down and bottom-up approach, the ONP would define clear, doable missions and priorities.

This would add to the duties currently carried out by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning and provide it with more flexibility and agility, both of which are essential for dealing with urgent national concerns.

Ministries can design policies, strategies, and programs that are in line with these missions once these priorities have been determined.

This strategy minimizes the possibility of implementation inefficiencies that come when many sectors are subsumed under a single policy, as each priority is regarded as a distinct sector. Instead, the emphasis is shifted to how policies help achieve national aims, improving cooperation and results.

The government can focus its efforts and improve development results by measuring policy effectiveness in the context of national priorities rather than isolated sector-specific milestones.

This method helps the government to tackle complicated concerns like food security more effectively and provides a coordinated approach to national growth. 

Nigeria’s defining decade

The next ten years will be of utmost importance to Nigeria’s destiny. The course of the country in the twenty-first century will be determined by how well it deals with complicated issues including healthcare, healthcare access, young unemployment, and food security.

These are enormous difficulties, but Nigeria may make significant strides in finding solutions by considering them as national priority that bring together the public, private, and third sectors.

It’s a critical time that necessitates concerted action to address these complex issues head-on.