CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD INSECURITY: Panacea to the Restlessness of Youth in Africa
By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
Climate change and food insecurity are the two big themes in 2025.
The two themes,
“…may sound humongous challenges or serious curses to humanity but beneth them lies opportunities out of the youth unemployment quagmire.”
Indeed, our youth are restless because they too have life visions and missions.
Unfortunately,
“We have suffocated their visions and missions by selling them scarcity.”
Indeed,
“The world has refused to sell hope in revamping the hopelessness of our youth into hopefulness.”
I call upon us to look at climate change and food insecurity as opportunities and not problems in fixing the challenges of youth bulge.
Let’s give the youth songs to sing in combating climate change and enhancing food production. The youth for example are technology savvy.
“IF we are thinking of developing new technologies and innovations, THEN let them be on combating climate change and enhancing food security.”
The projections on population growth are real because data rarely lies. The global population will surge and billions of mouths will be yearning to have some delicious bites, while billions of bellies will have to be filled three or more times a day.
“IF you are thinking entrepreneurship, THEN think of food entrepreneurship.”
Where food production, distribution, storage, manufacturing and consumption are concerned should be your focus of entrepreneurial ideas and technological innovations.
Accordingly,
“One way of creating opportunities, where opportunities are scarce this year is for governments, especially in Africa, to provide an enabling environment to the food sector to flourish.”
As you aware, the world is experiencing a youth bulge and many countries, especially in the developing world, have no idea on how to mitigate the growing number of youth amidst weakening economies and reducing employment opportunities.
“Worry less, the solution to the weakening economies and shrinking job opportunities amidst youth bulge is found beneath the food industry.”
Governments, all over the world, should make combating climate change and enhancing food security their priorities and their nascent challenges on how to improve their economies and handle the growing restlessness of the youth.
The youth are many and smart intellectually and technologically. They are a resource that can leverage the world out of its quagmires; only if we can know how and invest into using the talents.
I pen off by challenging most of us to invest in the food industry from farm to folk.
While we are fascinated with Artificial Intelligence [AI] and what it can do better than humans, with the accompanying machine learning, we must leverage on them as tools to combating climate change and enhancing food production, especially in Africa where a quarter of the global population will be residing by 2050.
By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri
Dean & Consultant Sociologist
PWANI UNIVERSITY
