As the call to battle hunger in the world continues to grow, another dimension to the battle against climatic forces has emerged in Nigeria in the form of acid rain threat.

Acid rain presents yet another challenge to smallholder farmers especially, because it has the potential of destroying crops in the farms thereby affecting the total yield at the end of the farming season.

Acid rain has serious destructive effects on soils because it affects the nutritional content of the soil and also off sets the soil balance and on plants, acid rain can cause very slow growth and in some cases the deaths of other while some of the acid rain that falls into the sea and rivers is toxic to aquatic animals and can slowly wipe out the aquatic population if it persists.

This has suddenly brought into limelight the impact of acid rain on the wellbeing of the nation especially regarding food security and availability.

Plants absorb nutrients from the soil to be able to carry out photosynthesis which is the lifeline of the plants but acid rain succeeds wearing off a waxy protective coating present on the leaves of plants making photosynthesis impossible and finally killing the plant.

The acidity in rainfall also dissolves and washes away the nutrients present in the soil that could have been used for the growth of the plant.

After acidifying the soil nutrients, crops become weak and are easily susceptible to diseases, pest and other climatic challenges.

What this means to the ordinary farmers are low yields and looming hunger in the months before the next farming season and incomes of families are jeopardized.

Whenever there is crop failure, there is food scarcity and the resultant effect of food scarcity is that it is followed by sharp increases in the prices of food items and related commodities.

Food availability and security has been a long battle the federal government is dealing with and it appears to be at a stalemate recently. It the threat of acid rain in the country is to be taken seriously, then efforts must be intensified to ensure that the effort of the few farmers feeding the nation is not strained further by this phenomenon.

The importance of food security on any nation cannot be over emphasize in the face of receding impacts of global financial meltdown, food security challenge and the ever present challenge of global climate change and the green house effect.

Experts have said that Nigeria is safe from the impacts of acid rain but at the beginning of the planting season this year in Nigeria, there was a public outcry that acidic rain has been experienced in Lagos state and the rumor sparked fears among Nigerians that the nation may not be too far from experiencing acid rain.

The phenomena is said to be caused by pollution of the atmosphere by certain chemicals known as hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide which are released when fuels and other sources of hydrocarbons are burnt.

Scot Wallace, the Country representative of the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development, said acid rain is not a phenomenon that is likely to be experienced in Nigeria therefore there is little cause for alarm.

These gases that are coming out from the smoke of burning such items are very dangerous to the environment and they go up into the atmosphere to mix with rain thereby making the rain to become acidic in nature.

According to him "I have not seen or heard any cases of acid rain in Nigeria, acid rain is not an issue that is popular here."