Innovations in Sustainable Food Security: A deliberate approach to eradicate Hunger and Malnutrition in NIGERIA

Innovations in Sustainable Food Security: A deliberate approach to eradicate Hunger and Malnutrition in NIGERIA Kehinde, S.O ; Ezemba, C.C. Department of Microbiology, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu University, Uli, Anambra State, NIGERIA olukemikehinde@gmail.com, constancechinyere790@gmail.com ABSTRACT There is said to be food security when everyone in spite of their race, belief, status and geographical location has good access to healthy, nutritious and desirable food at any point in time. This indeed has not been obtainable in Nigeria as there is still a good number of people who don’t have access to healthy foods. To ensure the eradication of hunger and malnutrition in Nigeria, there has to be an intentional and deliberate attempt to treat the root causes of food scarcity, under/over utilization, instability and unavailability of food. The root causes which include: lack of access to technologies that improve productions, climate change, poor soil management practices, insurgencies, transportation difficulties, poverty, ban on foreign importation, poor pest control techniques, inadequate water supply, disease outbreaks, food wastage and lack of adequate preservation facilities. To solve the problem of food insecurity in Nigeria, innovations to sustainable food security such as aeroponics, aquaponics, hydroponics, tissue culture, selective breeding, genetic engineering, direct seeding and biofortification must be recognized and implemented. Furthermore, food processing and preservation technologies which are high pressure processing, high pressure thermal processing, pulsed electric field processing, cool plasma and ultraviolet light processing should be practiced and also insurgencies and poverty issues should be well addressed. Keywords: food security, production, processing, biofortification, technology, innovation URL: https://www.ijfsnpht.org/papers-published/ijfsnpht-2021-volume-11-issue-