The number facing hunger during the June-August lean season has quadrupled over the last five years, they said, noting that economic challenges such as double-digit inflation and stagnating local production had become major drivers of the crisis, beyond recurrent conflicts in the region.

Among the worst-affected countries are Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Mali, where around 2,600 people in northern areas are likely to experience catastrophic hunger, said the World Food Programme, U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, and the Food and Agriculture Organization in a joint statement.

“The time to act is now. We need all partners to step up … to prevent the situation from getting out of control,” said Margot Vandervelden, WFP’s acting regional director for West Africa.

Due to the food shortages, malnutrition is alarmingly high, the agencies said, estimating that 16.7 million children under the age of five are acutely malnourished across West and Central Africa.

The region’s heavy dependence on food imports has tightened the squeeze, particularly for countries battling high inflation such as Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.

Policies should be introduced to boost and diversify local food production “to respond to the unprecedented food and nutrition insecurity,” said Robert Guei, the FAO’s Sub-regional Coordinator for West Africa.

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Violence between farmers and pastoralists has become increasingly common in recent years as population growth leads to an expansion of the area dedicated to farming, leaving less land available for open grazing by nomads’ herds of cattle.

A local resident, Bernard Matur, said the gunmen attacked Maikatako village, in Plateau state, on Monday evening, killing at least 12 people.

Matur said the unprovoked attack was to take over their land, which herdsmen have done in neighbouring villages.

Governor Simon Bako Lalong said 11 people were killed in the attack. He added that the rising incidence of attacks and destruction of farm crops, livestock and other properties within the state was becoming worrisome and needed to be checked.

Last month, clashes between herdsmen and farmers in the Nigerian state of Benue left at least 23 people dead.

— Reporting for Reuters by Camillus Eboh; writing by Chijioke Ohuocha.

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The torrent was, until recently, the East-West Road in Nigeria’s Rivers state, the gateway to the nation’s oil and gas.

Now parts of Rivers, along with large swathes of 32 other states, are inundated by the worst flooding in 12 years.

“We cannot access Ahoada West anymore,” local government chairman Hope Ikiriko said of the area he represents. He said 30 boats were helping to move people to camps built to accommodate the area’s 150,000 displaced.

“We are going to rescue people who hitherto never wanted to quit,” he added.

Nigerian authorities said Rivers, Anambra, Delta, Cross River and Bayelsa states remain at risk of flooding until the end of November.

The flooding has killed more than 600 people, displaced around 1.4 million and damaged or destroyed 440,000 hectares of farmland. Health officials warn it could worsen an ongoing cholera outbreak, and even natural gas exports are at risk.

Authorities blame heavy rains and a water release from the Lagdo dam in Cameroon. Experts say global warming, and poor planning, worsened the disaster.

“Climate change is playing a big role in this,” said Hiba Baroud, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Vanderbilt University. “But the other component is…the vulnerability of the infrastructure. This is how we end up in a disaster like this one.”

The 2021 Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index ranked Nigeria among the bottom 20 nations in its readiness to adapt to climate change.

Baroud said a Nigerian dam meant to backstop Cameroon’s Lagdo was planned, but never completed. A lack of zoning allows houses in flood zones and poor irrigation places farmers at the edge of rivers that can inundate their fields.

“It’s going to have cascading effects on diseases, on food security and so on,” Baroud said.

The nearby nation of Chad also declared a state of emergency Wednesday over flooding reported to be affecting more than a million people.

Chad’s two main rivers, the Chari and Logone, flow through its southern provinces and empty into Lake Chad, at the country’s border area with Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon.

This year Lake Chad was fed early on by other tributaries and its water level became higher than that of the two rivers, causing them to flow instead into surrounding towns and villages, said Hamid Abakar Souleymane, a hydrologist at Chad’s National Meteorological Agency.

— Angela Ukomadu is a news producer for Reuters in Lagos; additional reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja, Libby George in Lagos and Mahamat Ramadane in N’Djamena; writing by Libby George.

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Some $30 million will be spent in Yemen, $15 million each in Afghanistan and northeast Nigeria, $7 million each in South Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo and $6 million in Burkina Faso (all figures US$). Lowcock said $20 million had also been set aside in anticipation of a worsening situation in Ethiopia.

“The prospect of a return to a world in which famines are commonplace would be heart wrenching and obscene in a world where there is more than enough food for everyone. Famines result in agonizing and humiliating deaths,” Lowcock said.

“Their impact on a country is devastating and long lasting,” he said in a statement.

Nearly $500 million has been paid into the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund in 2020. It is used to enable the world body to respond quickly to new humanitarian crises or underfunded emergencies without having to wait for earmarked donations.

— Reporting for Reuters by Michelle Nichols.

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“The high-protein segment of the Nigerian market that was once (dominated by) U.S. wheat was completely replaced by CWRS in the last several years,” says Esey Assefaw, head of Asian products and pasta technology at the Canadian International Grains Institute (Cigi). “The remainder of the wheat needed by this market is from the U.S. and Black Sea region (Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan) and is medium to low protein.”

In 2016-17, Nigeria imported nearly 822,000 tonnes of CWRS — the highest in the last five years — in addition to 31,500 tonnes of Canada Western Amber Durum (CWAD), and smaller amounts of Canada Western Red Winter and Canada Northern Hard Red totalling 17,000 tonnes.

About 17 per cent of Nigerian wheat imports are currently from Canada, says Yvonne Supeene, Cigi’s head of baking technology. As a high-protein wheat, CWRS is primarily used for blending with lesser-quality wheats. “Bread is the main wheat-based end-product but pasta, rice and noodles are also eaten. This is a growing market for western Canadian wheat and the potential is huge.”

Supeene and Assefaw were part of a Cigi technology team that also included Norbert Cabral, acting head of Cigi milling technology, who visited Lagos, Nigeria, in March. While there, a technical workshop and seminar were held for customers on the fundamentals of CWRS quality related to milling, baking, and the processing of noodles and pasta.

The session participants represented 85 per cent of the market and other wheat classes such as CWAD and Canada Prairie Spring Red were also showcased, says Assefaw. He notes that pasta processing is the fastest-growing food manufacturing sector of the Nigerian market. “Although CWAD is used for pasta, price sensitivity in this market may also provide an opportunity for other wheat classes such as CPSR.”

Assefaw says another common Nigerian product for which CWAD may also have potential use is semovita, a starchy food made of wheat or white wheat, cooked into a paste and eaten with soups.

Supeene says bakers in Nigeria face challenges such as extreme heat and rudimentary processing methods. The marketplace does not have large industrialized bakeries and the infrastructure does not support wide distribution of bread products. “The baking industry is completely different from North America. There are about 90,000 small bakeries, mixing is done by hand, and bread is produced mainly for a local market.

“Customers depend on the high-protein, high-quality and strong gluten characteristics of CWRS to help overcome any processing challenges,” she says. “Improvements have been made to the CWRS class in the last few years and that quality and consistency needs to be maintained.”

Cigi began meeting with customers in West Africa several years ago and last December presented new crop seminars with a Canadian industry team in Nigeria and Ghana. The most recent technical visit to Nigeria was formalized at that time and more visits to this growing market are expected in future.

“It’s important that we maintain a presence in Nigeria,” says Assefaw. “Even though Russian wheat quality is inconsistent compared to CWRS, customers are getting used to it and may find ways to manage it. U.S. wheat was replaced by CWRS so we can’t take this market for granted. Ongoing technical support to this market is needed to maintain relationships so Nigeria will continue to buy from Canada.”

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A Nigerian company is carving a niche in the poultry industry by processing coloured hard-boiled eggs. As Sonia Legg reports, Funtuna is hoping quadruple the number of eggs Nigerians eat.

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Participants in the 49th annual International Grain Industry Program at the Canadian International Grains Institute, better known as Cigi, came to Canada to learn more about where the grain they buy comes from, how it is grown and how it is shipped.

“Partly we’re saying thank you to them for being good customers, but the big piece is just reassuring them again about the quality system in Canada,” said Rick Morgan, special projects adviser at Cigi. “We want to make sure they see how government and industry work together to ensure that what the customer receives is what they are expecting to receive.”

For Haitham Al-Khshali, director general of the Grain Board of Iraq, the two-week-long program has only helped to solidify his appreciation of Canadian wheat. While he would like to see more grain harvested in his home country, the current political situation has generated many pitfalls for agricultural producers there.

“They have a lot of obstacles, as you know they have a fight against ISIS, this fight is really a great conflict between Iraqi people and terrorists and this takes a great effort,” Al-Khshali said.

“Sometimes you cannot go to a certain part of the country because of the fight, sometimes roads are closed for battles that happen suddenly.”

The so-called Islamic State or Daesh has also been aggressively targeting grain silos in the war-ravaged country, either razing them or capturing them.

“These people are crazy and they have destroyed everything in the country… this is not logical for any person,” said Al-Khshali, adding that ongoing military conflicts have also destroyed generational knowledge in Iraq. Youth may go off to fight, people are also killed at home, forced off their land or internally displaced, he said, leaving either no one to teach the next generation about farming or no one to learn. Education systems have also been disrupted.

As a result, Iraq depends heavily on foreign imports of wheat, particularly from Canada.

“We are really happy that we deal with Canadian wheat, we have dealt with it for a long time,” he said, noting Iraq had purchased 100,000 tonnes of wheat from Richardson only three months earlier and had made an order for that same amount three months prior to that.

He said that the kind of training provided by Cigi is exactly what his country’s millers and growers are looking for, and that he hopes the relationship between the institute and Iraq continues to be a strong one.

Nigeria has also been increasingly reliant on Canadian wheat in recent years, although for very different reasons.

“Canadian wheat is not new to Nigeria, but we have seen the import of Canadian wheat into Nigeria double in the last couple of years, to be precise, I think from 2008 the import value of Canadian wheat was about C$12.3 million, which rose to about C$160.5 million by 2013,” said Emmanuel Mshelia of Royal Mills and Foods Limited in Karu Abuja, Nigeria. “And if you look at the figure for exports of Canadian merchandise to Nigeria in 2015, it stood at about C$469 million, which is a lot of growth.”

Demand for high-protein wheat, which is usually blended with lower-quality wheats, has been driven by a growing and increasingly urban population. That same population is also seeking convenient foods that require little preparation, Mshelia added.

Instant Asian noodles are one of the most popular choices for consumers and the main product produced by Royal Mills.

“Asian noodles were introduced into the Nigerian market I think about 22, 25 years ago, and it has gained acceptance by almost all category of people,” he explained. “Because of the convenience of cooking, it’s very fast… lifestyles have changed.”

Royal Mills plans to double production in the next year, tripling it with the next five years, importing more Canadian wheat as it expands. However, due to low oil prices and a deepening recession, overall wheat imports to Nigeria are expected to shrink in 2017.

“We are aggressive as a company and we have been able to come out with a very good product, which is very, very fast taking over the market,” Mshelia said, adding the characteristics of Canadian Western Red Spring wheat is particularly well suited to instant noodle production.

Morgan said that presentations on noodle making, milling and baking were all a part of the program, which allowed customers to really get to know the Canadian system of production.

“There were many questions asked and many questions answered,” he said, adding that the program has been adapted many times since its inception nearly five decades ago. The end of the Canadian Wheat Board’s single desk has also changed the interactions participants have.

“We have a bit more opportunity to introduce them to some other Canadian crops as well, and some of their countries are also importing other Canadian crops, like canola and pulses and things like that,” Morgan said. “So we spend a little bit of time on those kinds of crops as well, and have presentations by groups like Pulse Canada and the Canola Council that didn’t happen in the past.”

There was also a presentation by Grain Farmers of Ontario, before the group headed to Vancouver to see wheat being loaded onto ships.

“When the wheat board was around, it was pretty focused on western wheat and now we have the opportunity to include something about eastern Canadian wheat as well,” he said.

Some of the participants had been in Canada before, but it has been decades since a representative from Iraq has participated. For others it was their first trip to Canada.

“This is my first and I hope it won’t be my last,” said Mshelia.

This article first appeared in the August 18, 2016 issue of the Manitoba Co-operator.

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