The nation’s agriculture has been characterised by early and strong rainy season in the South and long dry season in the North that affect crop and livestock production as well as have an impact on the well-being of farmers.The fear is increased poverty rate across the country. To militate against this, stakeholders say specialised agric weather and coordination is key to preparing farmers against environmental disasters, DANIEL ESSIET writes.
NIGERIA like other agrarian countries has suffered from the impact of climate change. While some parts of the country has seen little water to farm, many areas have seen heavy seasonal rain and flooding exacerbated by storms. In some of these areas, heavy seasonal rain that came too soon and failed flood mitigation measures prevented early planting.
Following the chain of hydro meteorological events, most of which involved crucial agricultural heartlands, there is worry that it will impact food security in the areas. Across the industry, there have been records of destruction wrought by catastrophic weather.
As thousands of acres of farmland are under cultivation, farmers are struggling to control erosion, improve soil health and trap carbon in the soil. Some acres last year were simply too wet to be planted, leaving farmers with significantly less income from little areas left for cultivation.
The extreme weather has sparked an increased interest in climate change. This is because of its impact on farm production. In some areas, a growing number of farmers are changing how they farm to be more resilient to climate change.
One of them is Debo Thomas, a farmer in Ogbomosho, Oyo State.
His concern is that smallholder farmers, responsible for the bulk of agricultural, are particularly vulnerable to changing weather patterns, calling for measures to build up climate resilience that can enable them to withstand climate change while maintaining agricultural productivity.
According to him, there is a high demand for forecasts to help farmers to choose crop varieties that are optimal for the upcoming growth season.
He said the industry needs dependable agricultural weather advisory system to support farmers and agribusinesses to make weather-optimised decisions.
Using the forecasts, he added help farmers plan their agricultural activities and protect their crops when hazardous weather is forecast. He cultivates maize and cashew. However, he likes to plant when he is sure there will be enough rains to wet the ground.
Extreme weather events, such as excess rainfall, were a major cause of crop yield losses and food insecurity worldwide, according to analysts. Last year, torrential rains in most parts of the country soaked fields, leaving the sodden soil unsuitable for planting in most parts of the country.
One farmer who does not want to suffer losses as a result of climate change is Innocent Mokidi. He understands how weather challenges can lead to slim profit margins.
A farmer in Nassarawa, Mokidi is working smarter, more efficiently to produce crops with climate-positive production practices.
Mokidi said climate change poses problems for crops farmers. To mitigate this, he has deployed crop management strategies such as cultivating short season crops, shifting to new crops, legume intercropping, crop diversification and changing planting dates.
Mokidi believes it was important to implement measures that ease the adverse effects of climate change. This, he stressed, depends on dependable agric specific weather forecasts.
He said: “Because agriculture is timing and you need the right time to cultivate and the weather forecast will guide you on this. More also with the weather forecast you can understudy the rainfall pattern for wet season farm.”
According to him, accurate agric weather information offers potential ways to strengthen farmers’ response to climate change.
More and more agricultural areas are coming under the ambit of extreme weather events.
For this reason, a former Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Prof Abiodun Adeloye emphasised the need for agric specific weather forecasts that present analysis of rainfall patterns.
A past President, Nigerian Meteorological Society (NMetS), Adeloye said weather forecast was critical for farmers to make the correct decisions on harvesting, processing, storage, and supply of their produce.
His words: “For farm work information such as soil temperature. Sunshine hours are very important along with conventional weather information, so forecasts specific for agriculture is important.”
He pointed that climate change contributed to outbreaks of disease among animals and poultry.
Last year, rains in most parts of the country late, which led to late planting and harvesting of some crops. Delay in the arrival of rains force farmers to rethink their planting strategies.
While dry spell and weather in the North caused some challenges, a lot of farmers depend on irrigation to carry on with their activities.
In his view, a plant breeder, Prof Onuh Martin said locally specific weather forecasts and agricultural advice will help farmers in better adapt to increasingly variable weather .
He said the sector was prone to various kinds of changing weather patterns and hazards that threaten farmers causing large-scale loss to the economy.
Why agric weather forecast matters
Martin continued: “Weather forecast is very important in agriculture for determining cropping period (time) for some crops, simulations of weather components and their possible effects on agric production. Also determining the possible outbreak of pests and diseases and ways they can be controlled.”
He said the sector needs for proper planning of agricultural production, in terms ofw quantity and quality of rainfall, sunlight among others.
The Country Manager, OCP Nigeria, Mr Caleb Usoh was of the opinion widespread changes in rainfall and temperature patterns is threatening agricultural production.
He noted that the threats can be reduced by increasing the adaptive capacity of farmers as well as increasing resilience and resource use efficiency in agricultural production systems.
Usoh observed that agricultural output strongly dependent on the weather and that the National Meteorological Agency needs to work with farmers to provide agric specific weather forecasts that will help famers to make profits.
While the coverage of weather related forecasts and extension information is improving, he said a lot more needs to be done to make reliable information accessible to farmers.
He said such information will further guarantee minimal losses from associated hazards, which are becoming quite devastating in this era of climate change.
He said the agency has the capabilities and the equipment to deliver reliable information for farmers to act on it.
At the International Conference and Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Meteorological Society (NMETs) held at the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, with the theme Climate Change: Challenges and Prospects , the Director-General/CEO, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) Professor Sani Abubakar Mashi represented by Prof Peter Odjugo said NIMET was deploying its expertise to combat climate change effects in Nigeria through mounting fully automated weather stations, generating data for research, seasonal rainfall prediction, quality weather review, and drought review and crop weather calendar.
Abubakar said climate change is evident in the gradual increasing temperatures, sea level rise, submerging of land surfaces, flooding of coastal area and desertification of the north. He said effects of climate change can be tackled by all with afforestation, healthy attitude and migration.
Early this year, NiMet has revealed that farmers who cultivate early were likely to have poor harvest.
“Farmers are advised to avoid planting during the pre-onset period. Rather, they should focus on land preparation,” it said.
A pre-onset period is the season that comes before the rainfall season.
“Before the full establishment of the onset of the planting season over the various ecological zones, a couple of rainfall events are expected to occur which could be enormous and tend to give a false start of the season,”.
Though such rainfall events are not uncommon, however, their frequency seems to be on the rise.
Some forcing functions have been observed to be likely responsible and will be monitored carefully and keep Nigerians informed, the agency said.
It highlighted that farmers should, therefore, avoid early planting during this period to avoid losses. In the document, farmers were encouraged to adopt climate smart agricultural practices that will boost the output for the year. “Authorities concerned should facilitate the provisions of early maturing and drought resistant varieties to guard against the risk of crop failure and poor yield, “ it said.
Also, soil and water management is essential for maintaining the production of food crops and folder under conditions with high water stress.
The forecast said soil erosion will be controlled through the introduction of various techniques, all which could also contribute to increased infiltration, improved soil fertility and water conservation to guarantee crop production in the country.
According to the document, cropping patterns adjustments can also help farmers adapt to changing weather patterns.
Additionally, conservation agriculture, which encompasses the techniques of minimum mechanical soil disturbance, aims at achieving sustained agricultural production and environmental conservation.
This year also, Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) and the NiMet signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the utilisation of meteorological data among other big data sets to enhance yield increase and productivity of farmers and avoidance of catastrophic weather risk events.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive, NIRSAL, Mr. Aliyu Abdulhameed, said the collaboration will ultimately lead to the generation and provision of agro-meteorological weather information and other strategic services for supporting finance and investment decisions.
He said the MoU represented a significant step towards achieving precision agriculture in the country as well as marked the start of a strategic partnership with NiMet, whose official mandate is to provide climate and weather data services to the country.
Abdulhameed said NIRSAL would under the partnership pursue strategies to downscale the Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP) components including temperature, onset of rainfall and dry spells, cessation of rainfall, among others to farmers.
He said it will be an awareness campaign that will guide farmers against pre-onset rainfall (false-onset) and recommend risk measures in places that will experience severe dry spells namely Bauchi, Zamfara, Katsina, Kebbi, Borno and Yobe, where, the dry spell is expected to last between 10 to 21 days. He added that NIRSAL will use platforms like town hall meetings, radio jingles and other channels of mass media to ensure the dissemination of right information to farmers to support activities in the upstream farming segment of crop value chains.
The NIRSAL boss stressed that the partnership will further pursue the development of crop-specific calendars for NIRSAL’s focus commodities to provide precise information on planting, maintenance and harvesting within the ACEAs leveraging NiMet data.
The Executive Secretary, HEDA Resource Centre,Sulaimon Arigbabu said rapid changes of weather affected crop production and requires , a strategy to deal with the ongoing climate change.
He said agriculture is a key sector in economy, providing livelihoods for majority of the population.
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