Experts push climate-smart agriculture to solve climate change woes 

Climate change, defined as a long-term increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere and weather patterns, has been largely attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by high levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants driven by human activities. Its adverse impact has been regarded as one of the most serious environmental threats affecting agriculture production globally with a rising threat of  destabilising local markets, curbing economic growth, and heightening risk for agricultural investors.

Thus, countries whose agricultural sector is largely based on weather-sensitive production systems and low adaptive capacities are particularly vulnerable to climate change.

A report by the International Food Policy Research Institute projected that crop yield in sub-Saharan Africa, a region where Nigeria is located, may fall by 10-20 per cent or even up to 50 per cent by 2050 due to climate change if the situation is not effectively curtailed, particularly as African agriculture is predominantly rain-fed and hence fundamentally dependent on the vagaries of weather.

As Nigeria currently strives to overcome food insecurity and advance economic growth through agricultural productivity, this phenomenon threatens to deepen vulnerabilities, erode hard-won gains and seriously undermine prospects for development.

Agronomists and other experts have also projected that the coming decades could prove more challenging for the agricultural sector unless climate-smart techniques are urgently exploited to cushion the effects of climate change.

To this end, they have harped on the urgent  adoption and development of climate-smart agriculture.

Climate-smart agriculture, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), is a form of agriculture that sustainably increases resilience/adaptation to changing climatic conditions, reduces or removes greenhouse gases, and enhances achievement of food security in the face of global warming.

Agronomists further describe it as an adaptation strategy that combines the improvement of social resilience and promotes environment-friendly intensification of the farming system that helps farmers to be resilient to and cope with the effects of climate change.

Chuwumerije Okereke, director, Centre for Climate Change and Development, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ebonyi State, in his assessment of the economic impact of climate change in Nigeria, said the country will lose about $460 billion by 2050 if action is not taken to mitigate its effects.

“Climate change is costing Nigeria already $100 billion per annum. This amount will rise to about $460 billion per annum by 2050,” Okereke said at the ninth international Climate Change Summit held in Lagos recently.

According to the professor of Environment and Development, climate change has already cost Nigeria N15 trillion between 2020 and now, representing two to 11 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Speaking on the impact of climate change on Nigeria’s agriculture, he stated that climate change has resulted in the increasing number of  desertification in the north, flooding in the west, erosion in the east and deforestation in the south.

This, he explained, has affected different crops and imposed stronger and negative implications on the food security system in the country, considering that agriculture constitutes about 26 per cent of the nation’s GDP.

Okereke noted that the impact of climate change on the agricultural system could not be wished away as it requires concentrated efforts in the areas of research, policy formulations, farmers’ enlightenment and the practice of climate-smart behaviours.

He, therefore, urged the government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and crop research institutes and other relevant agencies to carefully design and target multiple climate-smart agricultural technologies suited to specific agro-ecological zones in the country.

Manzo Maigari, director-general, Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), also emphasised the relevance of climate-smart agriculture for  farmers, describing it as a solution to restoring soil nutrient loss to climate change impact on the ecosystem.

Maigari explained that the use of fertilisers, continuous felling of trees, bush burning and saturation of carbon lead to the disruption of the environment, which caused the climate change affecting farmers’ productivity.

To tackle effects of climate change in the agricultural sector, Maigari enjoined all farmer groups and associations, non-governmental organizations and the government to collaborate and embark on awareness campaigns to re-orient farmers on the effects of climate change on agriculture and the adoption of climate-smart agriculture.

Making a case for the adoption of climate-smart agriculture in the Nigerian agriculture sector, Chijioke Ndem, monitoring and evaluation consultant at Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), said it is the best solution towards attaining food security, noting that the sustainable productivity of the farmers, particularly the smallholder farmers, depends on their ability to adapt to climatic changes and variability hinged on holistic approaches to agricultural production.

Ndem noted that the implementation of specific and accurate data on weather-based information is a major step towards helping farmers make effective decisions, draw business plans, develop their farming model, and design the kind of capacity and training they will need for any particular planting season.

He further stated that sustained collaborations between farmers and seed companies is essential towards ensuring provision of drought-tolerant and disease-tolerant crop varieties that can be cultivated based on weather information of the region for the particular cultivation season.

Wale Oyekoya, an agricultural consultant and CEO of Bama Farms, Lagos, said that climate change is a global challenge that has also affected the developed countries. He however pointed out that the issue with Nigeria is that the country has been more passive in the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices.

“Most Nigerian farmers are based in rural areas and a huge number do not possess technical expertise or innovations and access to new improved hybrid seeds that can withstand the effects of climate change,” he said.

Oyekoya added that the farmers are, in most cases, helpless as they do not have modern tools such as the thermostat that can be used in detecting and predicting temperature from the farm which will help monitor cultivation and yields.

The Nigerian government, according to the agricultural consultant, is aware of these challenges and there have been some policies on climate change through the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and other related organisations, but the policies have not been effective enough due to inconsistency, lack of political will to do what is appropriate, and the failure to engage experts on the issue.

He suggested that the Nigerian government take a bold step to establish better-equipped weather stations as against the scanty and ill-equipped ones currently used in the country. With this in place, he stated that accurate weather forecasts and predictions will be possible and this will help to prevent weather-related disasters through early warning and effective response/adaptation systems.

Kolawole Adeniji, founder and  managing director, Niji Farms and Allied Services, Oyo State, explained that poor climatic conditions have taken a toll on food production across many agriculture-based areas in the country.

Citing cases of droughts in the northern region, Adeniji noted that Bauchi, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kogi, Taraba and some other northern states have in recent times experienced rising drought conditions which have become a cause for concern to the farmers.

He said that climate change has also affected crop production in the southern region as unpredictable rainfall conditions have led to poor harvests of maize, cassava and some other crops  in many farming communities.

To further improve climate-smart agriculture in the country, Adeniji called for provision and concentration of drought-resistant and short-duration high-yielding crops which should be developed through research efforts and made available to farmers.

Gbolagade Ayoola, president and founder, Farm and Infrastructures Foundation, an organisation for promoting policy best practices in agriculture and rural development, said there is a need for effective capacity building to strengthen the most vulnerable group in agricultural production with requisite knowledge and information necessary for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

He added that a rural infrastructure approach with a focus on production, storage, processing and marketing infrastructure as well as investment in improved agricultural technology by the government and other stakeholders is essential to controlling the effects of climate change.