By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Nigerian, Meteorological Agency, NiMET, Thursday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, on seasonal climate prediction to boost farming activities across the country.

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Ernest Umakhihe, signed on behalf the Ministry while, the Director General, NiMET, Prof Mansur Matazu, signed on behalf of the agency.

Umakhihe speaking on the importance of the MoU with NiMET pointed that weather information remains key in the agricultural sector in order to add value to what farmers and other stakeholders are doing in food production and wealth creation.

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According to him, downscaling weather information to the farming communities would make it easier for farmers to understand what the weather predictions are to them and their farm business, and also will facilitate their access to insurance products that would help them adapt and mitigate the effect of climate change.

He also stressed that with this MoU it will enable farmers have timely weather information would boost their productivity of Nigerian farmers and reduce losses from adverse weather conditions.

Meanwhile, according to him, the Ministry has installed 10 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) in 10 States to assist in data generation for early warning information to farmers, and that weather information had over the years provided assistance to farmers in terms of amount of rainfall, duration, when to cultivate and the length of planting season.

He said: “It is gratifying the signing of the MoU which will signal commencement of full collaboration is starting at the onset of rains as forecasted by NiMET.

“NiMET’s Seasonal Rainfall Predication has over the years helped to shape agriculture in Nigeria with regard to amount of rainfall, duration, when to grow, length of growing season which will go a long way to increase the adaptive capacity of our farmers to changes in weather.

“Weather is extremely important to agricultural production, because occurrences of erratic weather are beyond human control.

“However, weather forecast assists planning of farming operation to adapt and mitigate the effects of adverse weather, if a forecast of the expected weather can be obtained on time.

“This is why weather information is very important and the responsibility lies with NiMET, who are to observe, collate, process and disseminate all meteorological data and information.

He also expressed optimism that the collaboration between the Ministry and NiMET will increase the number of AWS to be deployed to enhance the accuracy of the Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP) as envisaged under this MoU.

According to him, release of regular and timely annual Seasonal Climate Prediction, SCP, before the onset of rains as happened last month (January) by NiMET was well received.

“Working with NiMET, we hope to use the weather information to develop crop calendar for our various crop value chains.

“Downscaling weather information to the farming community level will also enabled our farmers assess Insurance Products that will help them adapt and mitigate the effect of climate change”, he said.

Earlier, the Director General, NiMET, Prof. Mansur Matazu, spoke on the importance of seasonal climate prediction as one of the major focus of the agency as it provides precision of weather to assist in data generation for early warning information to farmers.

Matazu said: “We have conducted surveys and realised that Nigerian farmers like an average African farmers are very knowledgeable and intelligent,  if you allow them, on their own, they can guess weather and climate if you allowed them.”

Vanguard News Nigeria