Nigeria, though blessed with vast land and water resources, still lacks behind some African countries in food sufficiency. It does not also come close to the big food production countries such as China, India, and the United States in the production and supply of food for local consumption and exports.

Nigeria's backwardness in food production has not been helped by a gamut of factors, which the country has failed to address over the years, leaving it at the mercy of importers with a huge foreign exchange drain and uncertainty whenever there is a little jerk in global politics and outbreak of epidemics, such as the recent Coronavirus, which trounced the universe for more than two years and is still lingering in some parts of the world.

In reality, Nigeria has been held hostage by its inability to carry out research and development in the area of agriculture, adopt modern agricultural practices and use mechanised agricultural production to lift the sector.

In addition, the country has also failed to incorporate the private sector into the food production system, offer reasonable credit to farmers to improve their production, provide storage and processing facilities for farmers and generally transform the transportation system to aid in the transfer of food from the production areas to where it is most needed.

Beyond these factors that are drawing the country back, the land use system, which makes it very difficult for farmers to acquire enough land for mass food production and farmers' reliance on subsistent agriculture and poor seed varieties, continue to stifle food security in the largest black country in the world.

"President Bola Tinubu is deeply troubled by the falling agricultural status of Nigeria and the danger it poses to food security. That aptly explains why he has declared a state of emergency in food security and announced some strategies to improve the situation."

But, while Nigeria strategizes to get itself out of the wood, China has been extending its hand of fellowship to Nigeria in the area of food production and security. In one of the strategies, China is implementing some agricultural projects under the Green Agriculture West Africa Limited, better known as GAWAL, to assist Nigeria and other West African countries in improving food production.

Under the project, which came into effect in 2006, a Chinese company known as CGCOC Group Limited, has positioned itself to serve as a partner for China-Africa agricultural development and a bridge for China-Africa agricultural cooperation.