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Business News of Tuesday, 27 December 2022

Source: www.punchng.com

500 farmers, experts meet over climate change

Climate change Climate change

No fewer than 500 farmers and agricultural experts have met in Kaduna to brainstorm on the challenges of climate change as it affects farming in the North-West geopolitical zone of the country.

The Director-General of the Nigerian Agribusiness Group, Dr Manzo Maigari, said the gathering was aimed at boosting farming, especially during the dry season to avoid the damages done to crops during flooding.

According to him, youth and women farmers as well as players in the agriculture business management were brought together with the aim of sensitising and educating them on the challenges of climate change as it affects farmers in Africa.

Maigari, a former Commissioner of Agriculture & Forestry under Governor Nasir El-rufai of Kaduna State, in an interview with journalists on the sideline of the two-day workshop, said the four-year project was fully funded by Bill Gates Foundation with Nigerian Business Groups as collateral and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture as a partner as well as the Kaduna State government.

The former commissioner further explained how he lost 500 hectares of rice farm to this year’s flooding, noting if quantified in monetary terms, it stood at N2 billion.

He, however, noted that it has become imperative to engage and involve insurance companies in the farming business in order for farmers to hedge their losses in the event of such natural disasters.

He said, “I want to speak practically as an individual who had lost so much to flooding. I lost 500 hectares of rice farm to flooding this year, and not a single strand of the rice survived, and if you want to quantify it in terms of monetary value is not less than N2 billion.

“We also need to look at an alternative to rain season farming. So, if you do dry-season farming, you won’t experience flooding. And we need to look for varieties of crops, rice that can survive flooding, stay underwater for days without dying.”

Earlier, speaking on ‘Small Scale Climate Smart Crop Production,’ Prof Emeka Oruonye, noted that it was necessary to grow more food crops and increase the income of small-scale farmers in order to mitigate poverty and achieve food security.

“Especially in this pandemic era, stakeholders in the agricultural space must join hands in maximising our numerous endowments to ensure that the desired economic growth is achieved.”

He added that the greatest challenges facing farmers currently are how to meet the increasing food demand, climate volatility, and more frequent extreme weather events, adding that temperature changes increasingly threaten the viability of food crop production.

Also speaking on ‘Climate Smart Agriculture Technologies and Practice in line with Food Safety Standards and Grades, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pyrogenesys, Mr Simon Ighofose, harped on the importance of climate-smart agriculture and said the production of biofuels and bioenergy remained some of the advantages of CSA.