Environmentalist to farmers: Adopt climate-smart practices to guarantee food security

Gloria Bulus, an environmentalist, has advised local farmers to adopt climate-smart agriculture techniques to guarantee food security in the country.

Speaking with NAN on Wednesday in Lagos, Bulus said the Nigerian Meteorological Agency’s (NIMET) prediction of a dry spell in parts of the country will negatively affect the agriculture sector.

She gave examples of climate-smart techniques and advised agriculture stakeholders to invest in such practices to lessen the impact of climate change on food production.

“Dry spell causes huge crop loss resulting in food shortage which in turn affects nutrition and livelihood of farmers and may also lead to increase in hunger,” she said.

“Most rural families and smallholder farmers depend on agriculture for their food and income.

“The spell will have devastating effects on these families, especially on poorer farming communities with less diversified livelihoods and few economic alternatives.

“Some climate-smart agricultural techniques that can be adopted by local farmers include use of drought-resistant varieties, organic farming, aquaculture, aquaponics, hydroponics, vertical farming, use of protected structures, and other controlled system farming.

“These techniques have been shown to be more productive and offer greater resilience to the impacts of climate change, over traditional systems.”

She asked the government to support farmers by educating and providing them with the enabling environment for them to grow crops even with the prevailing climate change conditions.