Food Security: Path To Healthy Nation

Very early in the life, I learnt a very vital les­son about the medici­nal value of food. As a young pre-teen lad, each time I complained of any ailment (especially headache which used to be a source of discom­fort for me) the first and typical reaction from my father used to be: "please go and give me something to eat!" My younger brother, unlike me, used to have more of stomach ache. He sued to get the same first line treatment, "something to eat," it was only after we had taken our food and the ailment refused to subside or disappear altogether that my father would recom­mend some other line of treat­ment.
It was quite understandable that my younger brother hardly ever returned after his meal to complain that he was still hav­ing pains in his tummy. The food had gone in there to take care of the pains! But my infant between the headache and the food; yet I can recall that my headache almost always disap­peared soon after the meal. In most of the cases where the headache persisted, it was soon­er or later accompanied with fever and usually degenerated into a full blown illness. Thus I have always seen food as a form of analgesic, a sort of Panadol complete with the instruction: "if symptom persists after tak­ing it, please see your doctor."
At pharmacies, drug shops and hospitals, I have heard medical personnel directing patients to get something to eat first before drugs are adminis­tered on them. For me, this is a confirmation that in matters of health, food comes before drugs.
    But this fact seems to be lost on many people, particu1arly those at the helm of leadership in African countries. Everyday you hear these leaders profess­ing their concern for raising the quality of the lives of their country men and women. Some even attempt to subvert the constitution of their countries to hang on to power ostensibly to "continue the good works of providing the necessities of life and a dose of luxury for their citizens, only to see the worst form of poverty and deprivation.
Only few African countries are self-sufficient in food pro­duction. Yet, you hear of mil­lions of dollars budgeted for agriculture annually. Not that the African soil is barren.
In fact, Africa has a very large proportion of arable land. In most places across the African continent, you do not need to treat the soil before it can sustain crops. Yet, African countries import food. It is from Africa you get pictures of malnour­ished children ravaged by kwashiorkor. It is African Nations that go cap in hand begging for food aid.
This was how Zambia got landed with genetically modi­fied grains in the name of food aid, a couple of years back. The country's government gracious­ly rejected the food. Talk of a beggar with a choice!
It is this solution that led to the cases of expired rice in Nigeria recently. Rice has over the years warmed its way on to dinner table across Nigeria as a staple food. It is the king of food for festive seasons, especially Christmas. So, some fraudulent business men decid­ed to use the opportunity of the last Christmas to push their expired rice into the market after re-bagging it for members of the unsuspecting public to buy. The rice was billed to be pushed into markets in some of the south eastern states of Nigeria. The plan was reported­ly foiled. But one cannot be too sure that some of the expired rice had not made its way into the market before the fraudu­lent business men were nabbed. What of the "Lucky" business men who successfully pushed their expired rice into the mar­ket without being detected? The health implication of doling out such unwholesome food to the public may not immediately come up for reckoning now, but, undoubtedly. Some harm may have been done to the health of some helpless citizens somewhere.
But that is the kind of thing you get when a Nation is not self sufficient in food produc­tion. Unwholesome foods from other countries get dumped on them to compromise the health of their citizens.
Now, why can't we produce enough rice for ourselves in Nigeria and Africa, when other countries like Thailand and Malaysia produce enough to dic­tate what is served on our din­ner tables? There are very many answers to this question, answers that a JSS 3 student can reel out off hand. These range from the unprofitable nature of farming in this part of the world to the land tenure system that is practiced, which restrict arable land, a negative phenomenon that discourage mechanized farming. Lack of incentives to farmers and absence of good storage facilities are also part of the problem.
My heart bleeds each time I pass through areas like Okoko, Oshodi and Iyana Iba in Lagos and see the heaps of Orange, Pineapple and some other fruits left to rot away for no other rea­son than that there is no way to store them. Who says fruits must be stored in their natural form to retain their nutrients? What stops us from transform­ing them into fruit juice that can be stored through the use of preservatives or by refrigerating? Yet we spend millions of dollars annually to import sweetened, coloured and flavoured water in the name of fruit juice or fruit drink.