Gives hope to farmers

By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

The  Nigeria Agribusiness Group, NABG, has led other stakeholders in the agricultural sector to reduce climate change impact on agribusiness with Climate -Smart Agriculture approach.

NABG with concern over the toll and impact of devastating climate change on farmers’ productivity in Nigeria organised a 2-day Workshop on Developing a National Framework for Climate-Smart Agriculture with theme ‘Cleaner, safer, rewarding agriculture’ held from July 7-8, 2022, in Abuja.

Speaking on Climate-Smart Agriculture which is implemented by NABG, and funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the President, NABG, Emmanuel Ijewere, emphasized why farmers in Nigeria need to adopt Climate-Smart Agriculture as solution to crop cultivation, mitigating post-harvest losses, improving crop yields, restoring soil nutrients, and improving livestock farming amidst ravaging climate change impact on the ecosystem.

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He pointed that every country has specific responsibility to adjust to the climate change, especially in food production.

He further stated that the initiative championed by NABG is to ensure a sustainable agricultural framework is established which is inclusive and where Nigerian youths would have opportunity to get involved in food production, hence would reduce massive food importation bill while using the land resources efficiently and effectively with modern farm technology.

Climate-Smart Agriculture project will bring about increased harvest and less input sustainability; improving quality soil; sustainable Greenhouse gas levels; High production and falling cost, new methods on weather and harvest forecast; and Increase in one output will not affect the other.

He said: “We believe that it is high time Nigeria begins to transform it’s agri-food system including crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture, agroforestry and forestry.

“Agri-food systems must increase production in a sustainable manner in order to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.

“So, the whole idea of  putting this together  is to ask ourselves these questions in advance and to put in place a framework that will enable us address these issues.

“The damage has already been done to the climate. Now it is a question of living with those damages and mitigating them.

“At the end of the day, it is how to increase the yield, improve the soil, improve the environment and reduce the poverty of the people to ensure food security and to help in the  diversification, of the Nigerian economy.”

However, speaking on current spate of insecurity the NABG boss appealed to farmers not to relent in producing food for Nigerians, because Nigerians depend on them.

“Nigerians should not allow insecurity to dampen their enthusiasm to produce food and reduce food insecurity in our country”, he said.

Director General of NABG, Dr Manzo Maigari, said it has become incumbent on all stakeholders to embrace the climate -smart agriculture because of the value it adds to productivity and the potential to reduce the risks faced by farmers via climate change.

“The whole idea is to be able to come up with a draft document that nourishes your resilience document that has been developed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

“This is to support enrich that document, that resilience framework from Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development such that it can be upgraded into a policy document that can be approved by Federal Executive Council and enable us mainstream climate smart agriculture in all spheres of the Nigerian society, whether private or public, or the informal sectors with this climate smart agriculture”, Maigari said.

He also advised that, “So we must either stop or begin to imbibe practices that cause very minimal damage to environmental systems, natural environmental systems so that it is sustainable in order for the environment to be regenerative enough for us to hand over something to our children.”

He mentioned that use of fertilizers, felling tree, burning grasses and trees, and others lead to disruption of the environment including saturation of carbon that causes climate change affecting farmers’ productivity.

In fighting climate change in the agricultural sector, he said, “We will bring all the farmer associations, Nongovernmental Organizations, Government together, and we will embark on an awareness campaign where we will embark on a reorientation for farmers to know all of the procedures and problems.”

Meanwhile, the Acting Vice Chancellor, Nasarawa State University, Prof Haruna Ayuba, said Nigeria cannot continue to depend on rain-fed agriculture but can store such for all year-round farming activities.

“In my paper, ‘Implications of Climate Change to Nigeria’s Agribusiness’, and we are saying about 80 per cent of us depend on rain-fed agriculture, and so if the rain does not  fall it means that we will not have enough food to eat, and so now that we are witnessing changes in the rainfall in some places is much rainfall and in some places is deficit rain fall.

“So when we have this education and awareness, then it helps you where you have excess of rainfall then you know how to channel that water, where you have deficit of rainfall, you also know how to maximize and optimize the little rainfall that we have.

“So if a nation like Israel can produce food with 20 millimeters of rainfall in some places then we have no reason not to produce food between 100 and 400 millimeters and in some places 1500 millimeters of rainfall”, he said.

Meanwhile, the Director, Animal Husbandry Services, Winnie Lai-Solarin, disclosed how climate change has negatively impacted livestock population in Nigeria.

Lai-Solarin explained that factors orchestrated by climate change affecting livestock include desertification, exposure of vegetations as a result of tree cutting, and others that have led to herder-farmer conflicts in the country.

She said: “There has been huge and negative impact by climate change on livestock in Nigeria. Huge impact, huge negative impact. If you just take your mind to Farmer- header clashes and the reasons that we know that caused that in the country, you will bring to mind climate change issues.

“Desertification has come about by climate change majorly because of cutting down of trees and exposing these soils to adverse effect of the environment we have degradation, over grazing over the years has also degraded grazing reserves in some areas.

“So what used to be green for livestock to feed has become brown and what used to be sun shades for them as the grazing in the grazing reserves and all around us has become bare.

“And so movement has has even increased bringing about conflict.

“Look at how the Lake Chad is shrinking by the day and other water bodies where the animals get water and you begin to see the adverse effects of climate change and the livestock production systems, particularly, the extensive system of production which is pastoralism.

“And here we are talking about how we can mitigate conflict. We will start mitigating conflict, if we start talking about climate change adaptation, and how we can ensure that livestock in itself is not does not emit enormous greenhouse gas, which we know is also part of the problem.

“Climate change has affected livestock much more than is being said in the discourse.”

However, she advised that there should be holistic approach to proffer solution.

“Let us look at critically are those things that we need to do as a country so that we can mitigate this conflict dialogue upon dialogue on dialogue is good.

“However, if we don’t tackle that non-availability of pasture, non-availability of water and desertification, and all the climate change issues including urbanization, we will only dialogue there would be no way for even people who are trying to engage to still end their lives because the very essence of their life is being attacked by climate change”, she stated.

Also speaking was the Head of Gender Desk, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ifeoma Anyanwu, on how women farmers are trained on alternative use of energy for cooking whereby they were also given clean cooking stove for their domestic and industrial activities.

According to Anyanwu, “We did capacity building whereby they have been exposed and how to deal with climate change and it’s impact.

“They have been able to show that they deal with the issue of climate change by not cutting trees by not using firewood that would enhance their health status.

“This are some of the measures they have adopted to deal with climate change impact.”

The Chief Meteorologist, Nigeria Meteorological Agency, NiMET, James Adamu, advised farmers on adhering to weather forecast to aid them in the agricultural activities.

“For every prediction, weather is dynamic if there are changes, we give updates and if those updates are that critical my Director General will come on air and address the sectors that would be affected.

“The farmers will be monitoring and given monthly and weekly advisories to guide them. We also enjoined them to pay attention to the daily weather forecasts before operations which is critical for their sector”, he said.

Vanguard News Nigeria