Nigerian Farmers Urged to Embrace Climate -Smart Agriculture

A stakeholder in the agricultural sector has urged Nigerian farmers to embrace climate -smart agricultural approach to mitigate impacts of climate change on production.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), Dr Manzo Maigari, made this call on the sideline of a 2-day Workshop on” Developing a National Framework for Climate-Smart Agriculture” with the theme” Cleaner, Safer, Rewarding Agriculture” in Abuja at the weekend. Speaking, the DG said it was incumbent on farmers to embrace climate-smart agriculture because it improves productivity and has the potential to reduce the risks faced due to climate change.

Also, Maigari called for adoption of practices that cause minimal damage to the environment for sustainability.

He said, “We must either stop damage or begin to imbibe practices that cause very minimal damage to environmental systems, and 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.”

Furthermore, NABG DG stressed that farmers in Nigeria must adopt climate-smart agriculture as a solution to crop cultivation, to mitigate post-harvest losses, improve crop yields and restore soil nutrient lost to climate change impact on the ecosystem.

According to him, the use of fertilizers, felling trees, burning of grasses and trees 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 pointed out that, all farmers’ groups and associations, Non-Governmental Organizations and the government must work together and embark on awareness campaigns to re-orient farmers on its (climate change) impacts on their agribusiness.

Speaking on the idea of having a National Framework for Climate-Smart Agriculture, he said it was to have a draft document that nourishes the resilience document developed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD).

His words: “The whole idea is to be able to come up with a draft document that nourishes the resilience (to climate change) document that has been developed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD). This is to support and enrich that document, resilience framework from FMARD, such that it can be upgraded into a policy document that can be approved by Federal Executive Council. This will 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 noted.

Agro Nigeria