The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, has empowered farmers in the various extension outreach villages with useful agricultural information that would guide them in being mindful of their activities in their various locations.
The move is intended to enable the farmers get maximum yield, as they were also provided high-yielding cassava varieties for enhanced production.
The advice for better farming practice was given during the Annual Integrated Pre-season Training Workshop organised by the Agricultural Media Resources and Extension Centre, AMREC, themed “Climate Change: A Threat to Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Nigeria”.
While about 200 farmers got the high-yielding cassava during another pre-season training organised by Cassava: Adding Value for Africa, CAVA II, Project, in collaboration with AMREC, where 600 bundles of improved cassava stems were distributed.
Speaking at the occasion, Dr. Adedeji Oludare of the Department of Environmental Management and Toxicology, College of Environmental Resources Management, COLERM, defined climate change as an increase in the average global temperatures, due primarily to increases in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, emitted as a result of deforestation, construction and incineration of wastes also as water vapour, methane, nitrous oxide and chloro-fluoro carbons. He said global warming was a major threat that could lead to the melting of atmospheric ice in many areas, thus putting people at the risk of drought, floods and insufficient clean water. He highlighted the effects of climate change to include increase in natural disasters, extreme weather, environmental refugees, shrinking of lakes that supply water for agriculture desertification, shortages of food and water and high death rate. He said Nigeria’s quest for self-sufficiency in food production may be marred by the negative effects of climate change on agriculture because every year, expectations of farmers remained dashed due to either late arrival of rainfall or excessive rainfall that resulted into flooding. He recommended that diversification of farming remained a vital option in achieving food security under a changing climate.
The Director, Communitybased Farming Scheme, COBFAS, Professor Emmanuel Fakoya, who spoke on the topic, “Indigenous Knowledge by Nigerian Farmers in Ensuring Sustainability in Agricultural Productivity in the Face of Climate Change”, referred to indigenous knowledge as the skills possessed by the indigenous people and communities as being different from the knowledge generated through research centers, industries and Universities.