NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT'S POLICY RESPONSE TO FOOD CRISIS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Abstract

Many countries across the globe including Nigeria are currently experiencing severe food crisis and climate change that leave many households unable to feed their families. Protests and demonstrations have been witnessed especially in some Nigerian cities as no concrete actions have been taken by the government to address the situation. Social work as a profession concerned with the well-being of people cannot shelve itself from this situation. This paper examined the Nigerian government's policy response to the skyrocketing prices of staple foods in the midst of global climate change and its implications to social work practice. The paper relied more on the secondary sources of data collection (internet materials, journal articles, textbooks and conference documents) that were later content analyzed. The paper noted that the Nigerian government's policies on food and climate change have been more of a knee-jerk reaction premised on setting up various committees that do not produce positive results, make-shift settlement patterns for climate disaster victims, banning food importation, forcing food producers and owners of warehouses to release their products to consumers and giving palliatives/distribution of grains rather than fashioning out reliable policies/programmes and new technologies that would bring a solution to the prevailing realities of the country. The paper therefore recommended amongst others that the government should scale up the budgetary allocation to Agricultural production, construction of dams as well as involve social workers as part of policy initiatives and for proper sensitizations on climate-induced disasters.