A recent report by the United Nations World Water Council (WWC) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that by 2050, water supplies will dwindle in parts of the world, threatening food security and livelihoods.
The report noted that having less available water risks catastrophe on many fronts as crops could fail, ecosystems could break down, industries could collapse, disease and poverty could worsen, and violent conflicts over access to water could become more frequent.
While the projected year is still more than three decades away, Nigeria appears to have begun to experience signs of the calamities predicted by the report. The Secretary General of a herdsmen group known as Gan Allah Fulani Development Association of Nigeria (GADFAN), Alhaji Sale Bayari, told our correspondent that the change weather conditions was already taking a toll on their members’ businesses.
Bayari said: “It is going to be a very big disaster because already, the effect of global warming is catching up with the rest of the world and it has started wreaking a lot of havoc in the far north. Livestock have been moving from the north to the south in search of water and pasture, and this is the thing that has brought so much crisis between herdsmen and farmers in the country.
“Desertification is on the increase as water is becoming very scarce on a daily basis. The amount of water available is becoming less as we move northward. People are forced to move southwards, resulting in a sort of congestion for farmers and herdsmen in areas that are blessed with rainfall. Coupled with the prediction that we are going to have less rain as we approach the next five to 10 years, one becomes frightened, because if care is not taken, we are going to have a lot of crisis in the agricultural sector, as demand for water by crop farmers and livestock farmers will be nationwide.”
Obviously saddened by the plight of his people, Bayari, whose voice was laden with emotion, said: “In the history of the livestock farming, 2016/2017 season has been the worst. We have lost livestock running into hundreds of thousands, especially in states like Kaduna, Plateau, Adamawa, Yobe, Taraba, Bauchi and Bornu, because of the congestion caused by keeping livestock in one place and the fact that water has become very scarce. Nobody needs to predict what is coming, because we are already seeing it.
“In the dry season, water sustains animals more than grass. Once you have water, your animals can feed on very little food. Once they have a lot of water in their bodies, the animals can live on small quantities of food. But if they don’t have water, no matter the quantity of food they eat, they will die.”
He also noted that GADFAN members had many of their livestock during clashes with famers. “In monetary terms, the cows we have lost this year are worth more than N5 billion,” he lamented. “Herdsmen now operate in places where you would ordinarily not find animals at all in the dry season. In the dry season, all of them would move southward for pastures. But these movements have become impossible because the national and international cattle routes have been blocked by farmers.
“Apart from blocking the routes, farmers would not allow herdsmen access through their farms. The hostility has become so much, and people who have lost their loved ones are not ready to forgive. And if they are ready to forgive, it is often on the condition that they don’t want to see the herdsmen anymore. But then, there is no way they would not see the herdsmen because the quest for survival forces herdsmen to risk their lives going into places they are not sure to survive.”
GADFAN’s fears were also shared by another group of herdsmen known as Miyetti Allah. The Assistant Secretary of the group, Ibrahim Abdullahi, said: “The report gives us a lot of worries because we know that we are in a more disadvantaged position than all other arable farmers, because they have access to dams and irrigation for dry season farming while we don’t have that luxury. We depend on rivers and streams, but when it comes to dry season, most of these rivers dry up in the north. We are very concerned about this climate change because of the side effects on our animals and their productivity.
“There is this desertification that affects the entire north. There is also drought and scarcity of water in the far north. The drought affects our animals and, of course, the health of our animals is affected. Because without nutritious food, the animals fall sick easily.
“The pastoralists themselves are also affected because they have to keep moving from one place to another and sometimes, they run into danger. At times you move into places where there are conflicts and it affects you. Climate change has affected pastoralists more than any other sector of the society.”
Abdullahi added: “We are having problems with fodders because of inadequate rainfall in some areas. I am talking about the entire far nort—Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, parts of Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and even Yobe and Borno states. Those areas cannot sustain animals, especially during the dry season. This is why most of the pastoralists move to the south in order to get greener pastures.
“The quest for survival will keep making herdsmen to go to areas where they are prohibited. There is no political will to tackle these problems through articulated policies and programmes. Actually, the problem between farmers and herdsmen will have to go on because people must survive. People must move in order to earn a living.”
Common tune
Like their counterparts in livestock farming, crop farmers are also living in fear of the worsening climate challenge. The chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) in Kano, Abdurasheed Rimigado, said he and his members were worried about the change in weather, particularly because Kano is close to the Sahara Desert. Rimigado said: “The Sahara is approaching us more than it was in 2014. Although it is not prevalent now, we are seeing signs that it could get worse.
“Naturally, as a farmer, one should have fears about climate change. It affects farming activities from all angles because our business depends on rainfall and weather in general. It doesn’t matter whether you are a crop farmer, livestock or poultry farmer. The amount of rainfall we used to get has dwindled greatly and this affects our farming activities.”
Speaking with The Nation correspondent, a prominent farmer in Gwagwalada area of Abuja, Alhaji Alkali Ibrahim said: “Inadequate rainfall has made the crops planted by many farmers to dry up. The few ones that germinated were eaten up by insects and worms. This is part of the challenges because there is no enough rainfall.
“The problem affected many other farmers in other communities too. At the end of the day, the yield will be very poor. I planted melon, yam and maize but there was no sufficient rain to make them grow. We have replanted and yet have no sufficient rainfall for them to develop well.
“To make matters worse, we have no means of irrigating our farms. In our own area, there is River Osuma, which is very big. Its waters can be channelled into our farms, but it cannot be done by individual farmers. It can only be done by the government.
“We have associations, but when they apply for things, they don’t often get positive response. I doubt if there will be bumper harvest this year except there is an improvement in rainfall. If the same pattern of rainfall continues this manner, there will surely be problems.”
To avert scarcity of food, Alkali urged the government to encourage irrigation farming, saying: “If there are ways that water can be diverted for that purpose, it will greatly help. Constant and adequate supply of fertiliser and farm implements will also be very helpful. “
His counterpart in Benue State, Hon Bawa Haruna, said there would be crisis if the predictions in the UN report came to pass.
His words: “It will mean that farmers in the affected areas will no longer farm in such places. The food supply will greatly reduce and that will affect the masses.
“We have irrigation here in Agatu but it was done by individuals and not the government. We connected pipes to the river to bring water to our farms. This is where we have problems with the Fulani herdsmen during dry season. They always destroy our crops when they come here with their animals.”
Early in the year, in May to be precise, hundreds of irrigation farmers using water from Musawa Dam in Katsina State recorded huge losses following the sudden drying up of the dam. Crops at various stages of maturity reportedly wilted, forcing some of the farmers to commence early harvest to salvage what they could of the crops.
Alhaji Idris Abdullahi, the Chairman of Musawa Irrigation Farmers Association, said more than 150 farmers were affected. Abdullahi put the estimated losses incurred by the farmers at about N30 million, and loss of jobs at about 1,000 farm hands. He said about 150 hectares of tomato, potato, wheat, maize, onion and other vegetables were damaged.”
Implications
Examining the implications of the challenge, Bayari said: “Very seriously, there will be scarcity of beef in the future. A kilo of beef as at yesterday when I went to the market was N1,100, and that of intestine was N900\950. Before now, a kilo sold for N500. Nigeria has been feeding its citizens with beef from local cows reared by herdsmen. The government cannot claim to have spent N100 million importing beef as it does fish and poultry.
“Most of our herdsmen are now moving into other West African countries. This simply means that sooner or later, we will be importing beef from those countries. Definitely, we are going to have scarcity of beef, and that has already started. Check your market and ask what the position was this time last year and you will understand what I am talking about.”
Bayari believes there ought to be a mutually beneficial relationship between farmers and herdsmen, saying: “There is no way herdsmen would have challenges and farmers would not. When herdsmen stay in a place for two to three weeks, that place becomes one of the best places you can plant any type of crop and have good harvest. The usefulness of animal dung can be there for the next five years or more before the quality of the manure begins to decline. But chemicalised fertilizer does not last like that.
“If you apply fertilizer now and there is heavy rainfall, you have to re-apply. That is why in the north, you will find that the states that have more animals often have the best crop production. It has always been like that, especially now that chemical fertilizers are becoming more and more unaffordable.”
Buttressing Bayari’s remark, Abdullahi of Miyetti Allah said: “In fact, as I am talking to you, I have relatives moving to places as far as Ethiopia, Cameroon and Central Africa Republic, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea. Some of our people are moving to some of the West African countries. You know what implications this would have in the near future? Ninety-eight per cent of the protein being consumed in the country comes from this set of people.
“Don’t forget the socio-economic contributions they make in the country in terms of hides and skin. The health of the people in the country will also be affected because you need protein on a daily basis to build your body’s resistance to diseases. It is going to affect us if proper steps are not taken by the government.”
Lamentations over failure to conserve water
In the face of the UN’s clarion call to governments to rise to the challenge of climate change by making policies that will avert the impending water scarcity, the farmers pilloried the federal government for not living up to its responsibilities in this regard.
Bayari said: “So far, Nigeria has not been conserving water. If you go to Katsina State, when there is rain, you find rivers overflowing their bounds. The same thing happens when you go to Bauchi. Before the Yankari Grazing Reserve, there is a big river there that overflows between June and September. But between December and January, you will not find a drop of water. You will not even find drinking water there. Women will have to use their hands to dig the ground before they can scoop water.
“There is no water conserved by any of the three tiers of government. When there is heavy rainfall, water always comes to destroy our farmlands and houses, and shortly after that, you don’t get a drop to drink because the water has not been conserved.
“I am beginning to wonder why we have a ministry for water resources and one for the environment. What are they doing? When this water is flowing from stream into rivers and from rivers into oceans, why can’t we have earth dams along these rivers? You don’t have to block the entire river; just make an outlet for the water so that instead of flowing into the sea, it flows into the hinterland and then a small dam where this water will accumulate and will be used for the six months of dry season for both irrigation and animals.
“Nigeria will be better for this. Libya takes water from the Mediterranean Sea and make the entire desert a green pasture. If we can take oil from the Niger Delta to Kaduna refinery, if care is not taken, a time will come when we would have to take water from Bayelsa or from Lagos up to Maiduguri. If we are still blessed with water in the Lake Chad Basin, we may have to take water from there up to Sokoto. I am just wondering the kind of government that we have. God gave us so much but we lack so much.”
He added: “We are calling on government at all levels to for once face the challenge of water. Look at Kano State, the irrigation facilities provided by the late Audu Bako about 20 years ago has made it possible for hundreds of cows to mingle with the farmers there. Some of the farmers’ crops that are not needed are sold to the herdsmen to feed their cows. This is how ranches would have started gradually.
“There is no how you can keep cows in a place and at the end of the day, there is no food for them. We don’t have mechanised farming here in Nigeria. In mechanised farming, a farmer can feed 5,000 cows all year round through his crop residues.
“The federal and state governments must go all out to make sure that provisions are made for preservation of water resources.”
On his part, Abdullahi said: “There is water everywhere but there is no conservation to help us during dry season. Aside from the programme of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture targeted at some of the gazetted grazing reserve that we have in the country called water conservation, which is insufficient, I can tell you that there is no effort by the federal government to try to conserve water. Given the volume of rain that we normally record in the country, with good policies, we can conserve it and even give to our neighbours.”
Abdullahi hinted that as part of their efforts to address some of the problems faced by their members, Miyyeti Allah “is sensitising our people, because not even everybody in the society actually knows what climate change is. Some people in the government don’t even know this. You see the politics going on between America and other countries about global warming.
“Definitely, we have to reach out to the government for them to understand and appreciate the enormity of the problem at hand so that they can sensitize the people to start taking steps, especially on the need for people to introduce new animal husbandry techniques rather than depending on nature.
“People should be educated to start producing the fodder that they need throughout the season by fodder bank development, planting grasses of high nutritional value. As an association, we have started this enlightenment programme and advocacy to relevant authorities for them to appreciate the problems that we have and start mapping out strategies to curtail it.”
Last year, the Federal Government admitted that agriculture was in desperate need of water when it unfolded plans to commence the construction of about 10 new dams in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The construction of the projects known as PROJECT 10/37, it said, would begin in 2017.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, disclosed this during a public presentation of the water sector roadmap with the theme: “Immediate and Long Term Strategies for the Water Sector 2016-2030,” organised by the Ministry of Water Resources in Abuja.
Ogbeh had said: “We hope to create, in the next few years, 10 dams in each state of the federation. We have a project coming up next year called PROJECT 10/37. We are looking at a minimum of 10 dams in each state, including the FCT. It is said that if the world is unfortunate to witness another world war, the cause of that war will be either food or water. Agriculture is in desperate need of water, particularly because we know that we can no longer continue to rely on rainfall to sustain our agriculture.
“We need the Ministry of Water Resources more desperately than the ministry needs its self. We need to irrigate the land. We need to keep the animals. We need water for other reasons. We are looking at a future where, whether it rains or it does not rain, we can continue to produce food. Because if we don’t, as our population is ballooning towards 450 million by 2050, we may face serious problems with food production.”
Laudable as the plan appeared, the plight of the farmers showed that the project may not have taken off and may be just another political statement.
Efforts made to get the position of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture on the matter yielded no result as calls and text message sent to the mobile number of Dr Kayode Oyeleye, the Special Adviser to Ogbeh on media, were neither answered nor replied to.
