Project April 5, 2009
The Intersections of Insecurity in Nigeria, India and Malawi
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This project was produced in partnership with the Under-Told Stories Project
Fred de Sam Lazaro presents a series of reports from around the world, examining the intersections of food, food policy, and food security. In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, a legacy of corrupted governance and an economy based primarily on oil exports has left the agriculture sector significantly weakened and millions of Nigerians hungry. And as poorer neighboring countries export more food to Nigeria in exchange for petrodollars, people there also go hungry. In 2005 thousands of children in neighboring Niger died of malnutrition not because the country had had a particularly bad harvest but because there was a food shortage in Nigeria and people in Niger could not afford the ensuing higher prices. India has enjoyed bountiful harvests for four decades, owing to a green revolution of modern, chemical-based farming that transformed a chronically food-short nation. Today there's widespread concern about profligate use of water and chemical farming that have depleted soils and aquifers. From Malawi, the debate continues over the benefits of providing cash or crops to recipient nations, and the effects of domestic farm law on world food markets continue to grow.