The Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG) has called on stakeholders in the agricultural sector to reduce climate change impact on agribusiness with Climate -Smart Agriculture approach.
The Director General of NABG, Dr Manzo Maigari, said this on the sideline of a
2-day Workshop on Developing a National Framework for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Abuja, with the theme of the workshop Cleaner, Safer, Rewarding Agriculture’
Maigari said that it had become incumbent on all stakeholders to embrace climate -smart agriculture because of the value it adds to productivity and the potential to reduce the risks faced by farmers via climate change.
He advised that stakeholders should imbibe practices that causes minimal damage to natural environmental systems so that it is sustainable.
“So, we must either stop 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,” he said.
He said farmers in Nigeria needs to adopt Climate-Smart Agriculture as solution to crop cultivation, mitigating post-harvest losses, improving crop yields, restoring soil nutrients, among others due to ravaging climate change impact on the ecosystem.
He said that the use of fertilizers, felling trees, burning grasses and trees, as well as saturation of carbon lead to the disruption of the environment, which causes climate change affecting farmers’ productivity.
On tackling climate change in the agricultural sector, he said, “We will bring all the Farmers Associations, Non-Governmental Organisations and 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.”
He said the whole idea of the having a National Framework for Climate-Smart Agriculture is to be able to come up with a draft document that nourishes the resilience document that has been developed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
“The whole idea is to be able to come up with a draft document that nourishes your resilience ( to climate change) document that has been developed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
“This is to support and 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.
” 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 said.
The initiative championed by NABG is to ensure a sustainable agricultural framework is established, which is inclusive where Nigerian youths would have opportunity to get involved in food production.
