{"id":251185,"date":"2023-02-26T12:53:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T10:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/niger-is-africas-fastest-growing-country-how-to-feed-25-million-more-people-in-30-years\/"},"modified":"2023-02-26T12:53:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T10:53:54","slug":"niger-is-africas-fastest-growing-country-how-to-feed-25-million-more-people-in-30-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/niger-is-africas-fastest-growing-country-how-to-feed-25-million-more-people-in-30-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Niger is Africa’s fastest growing country \u2013 how to feed 25 million more people in 30 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Niger, a landlocked country in the dry Sahel region<\/a> of Africa, struggles to feed its 25 million<\/a> people. It currently ranks 115th out of 121 countries on the Global Hunger Index<\/a>, and the number of people not getting enough to eat has increased from about 13% of the population in 2014 to 20% in 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Things could deteriorate even further as Niger confronts a \u201cperfect storm\u201d. The country has one of the highest population growth rates<\/a> in the world, with few signs of slowing down. Its fertility rate<\/a> \u2013 at an average of seven children per women \u2013 is the highest in the world.<\/p>\n

Added to this, most of the country is infertile. Two-thirds of its area is located in the Sahara desert. Most of the country\u2019s agricultural land<\/a> lies in a narrow band close to the Nigerian border in the south and is being encroached on by the desert.<\/p>\n

Niger\u2019s population also has among the lowest human capital indexes<\/a>, which among other things mean people cannot earn enough to afford to buy food. This challenge is even greater given the recent shift in budgetary priorities<\/a> away from social development and towards national security due to growing instability in the Sahel region.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Niger is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change<\/a>. It has high exposure to heat and a low ability to adapt to changes in climate, like increasingly unpredictable rainfall. This will negatively affect crop yields in a country where less than 1%<\/a> of the cultivated land is irrigated. <\/p>\n

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An aerial view of Diffa in Niger.<\/span> Janie Barrett\/The Sydney Morning Herald\/Fairfax Media via Getty Images<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s projected that an additional two million Nigeriens<\/a> will be pushed into undernourishment by 2050 by the effects of climate change on crop yields and because agricultural workers (around 75% of the total employed population<\/a>) will struggle to work in the heat. <\/p>\n

So, how will Niger go from feeding 25 million people today to its projected population of 50 million people in 2050? <\/p>\n

In a recently published study<\/a>, my colleagues and I wanted to figure out how to achieve this \u2013 or get as close as possible. <\/p>\n

Increasing food security<\/h2>\n

We identified three interventions to address food availability: <\/p>\n