City Planning, City Growth and Food Security: The Inevitable Trinity in The Nigerian Food Equation

摘要

In Nigeria, the rising urban population is a reality that need be acknowledged as it presents multidimensional challenges for every aspect of life and especially the food situation and security. There is the un-abating land use change resulting in the shrinkage of land for urban and peri-urban agriculture. Owing to increasing population and land use change, per capital food supply is on the decline. Despite the fact that length of fallow period keeps reducing or is virtually non-existent, the proportion of the urban poor is on the increase and impulsively, peri-urban agriculture and urban agriculture have emerged and are intensifying expectedly. This will assume greater importance in the years ahead. Using elaborate literature search, this study presents a scenario of urban land use and land use change as affected by land tenure systems, land values, urban population dynamics and urban areas as vast nutrient sinks. All these imply fertilizer imports and nutrient recycling if food supplies from urban and peri-urban agriculture (UA and PUA) are to be sustained. The implications of population characteristics are discussed as it affects food security. The nature of PUA is examined to know its contributions to the urban food equation. The promises and threats of PUA as safety valves in the food equation are alluded to in the study. The concluding discussions dwell on a number of issues. These include policy goals and implications for PUA, with regards to population equilibrium, food and job security, poverty alleviation, gender sensitive support for women and the full utilization of sound land management principles. These are with the view of obtaining optimum yield from this inevitable trinity.