NiMet , FAO collaborates to Boost Nigeria’s Food Security
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) has declared partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to boost Nigeria’s food security measures.
This was revealed recently during a virtual meeting by the Director-General of NiMet, Prof. Mansur Matazu, who was represented by the agency’s Managing Director of Corporate Communications Unit, Mr Muntari Ibrahim.
Matazu stated that NiMet will work closely with FAO and other partners to promote the use of climate information in agricultural planning and decision making for improved food production, security and livelihoods.
“NiMet is committed to continuous monitoring of developing weather patterns in order to update its partners about observed changes, especially in areas that churn out large output of food, as failure to do this would impact negatively on food security.
“For example, projected spikes in temperature, changes in rainfall patterns and increase in extreme weather events can lead to reduction in water availability which may result in reduced agricultural productivity triggering subsequent threat to food security,” he said.
According to him, weather plays an important role in agriculture which dictates the kind of harvest farmers would reap.
Matazu noted that incidences of pests and diseases, water needs and fertiliser requirements are mainly dictated by weather patterns.
For this reason, he said that NiMet annually presents an overall Seasonal Climate Prediction of the country to assist different sectors of the economy with weather information.
As predicted earlier by NiMet, seven northern states will experience severe dry spells in June adding that by July and August, the dry spell would have improved and the affected states would experience above normal rainfall.
On his part, Emergency and Resilience Programme Specialist of FAO, Mr Sworo Yopesi, divulged that the agency had noticed the evolution of dry spells that could inhibit agriculture yields in some parts of the country.
According to Yopesi, this observation necessitated the urgent meeting with NiMet to synergise and arrive at a collective solution that can lead to timely dissemination of weather alerts to the affected regions impacted by the dry spells.
He added that the initiative was aimed at mitigating the negative impact of weather on agriculture thereby improving food security in Nigeria.
Yopesi further disclosed that FAO Nigeria, embodied a multi-disciplinary team of experts in different fields, including Forestry, Animal production, Fisheries, Crop Production, Agribusiness, Food Security, Nutrition, Irrigation, Emergency Response and Resilience Building.
source AGRONIGERIA
