Achieving food security and climate change mitigation through entrepreneurship development in rural Nigeria: Gender perspective

Globally, problem of food security and climate change demands innovative strategies that seek to promote an integrated approach of supporting the full continuum of production, processing and marketing of food to be done. For this reason this paper contends that rural entrepreneurial development could serve as panacea to achieving food security and climate change mitigation. Gender perspective is viewed as significant to achieving this goal since there are more females engaged in rural entrepreneurial practices than male. In 2008, agriculture contributed about 42% to the GDP with a growth rate of 6.54%. Of the 66% of the populace engaged in agriculture, 92% is male and 8% is female. Further, data shows that there are over 75 million females, both adults and children, amongst the about 150 million Nigerians. The population of people living in rural Nigeria is estimated at about 48% as at 2007, meaning that over 72 million persons live there, made up of approximately 35 million females and 37 million males. Agricultural practices through food and livestock production contribute to climate change. As at 2002, arable land in the country was about 34% of the total land mass of about 910,768 km2. As 2003 livestock and poultry inventory was estimated at about 290 million. In addition, the competing uses of the various food and cash crops, as well as grain from Nigeria’s agricultural farmland have added pressure to the need for more land for food and cash crop as well as grain production. Desert encroachment and reduced rainfall have also affected livestock production. These factors have created food security challenges, with threats of hunger and poverty: 70% of the population lives on less than N100 (US $ 0.7) per day, about 60.8% of the population is malnourished; even though smallholder farmers constitute 80% of all farm holdings their production system is inefficient and it always results in regular shortfall in national domestic production; this makes food importation a common feature in the country. Secondary data were sourced to analyze the current situation and to proffer recommendations for achieving food security and climate change mitigation. Inventory of greenhouse gases emission from agricultural practices and livestock production in the country was assessed using Inter-governmental panel of climate change (IPCC) methodology. Cost-benefit analysis was then conducted for identified options that enabled informed suggested recommendations for entrepreneurship development in rural Nigeria viewed with gender perspective.Key words: Food security, climate change mitigation, rural entrepreneurship development, gender perspective