Agriculture in Southeast and Southsouth Nigeria is being crippled as the regions face adverse climate change risks. These two regions occupy the South Guinea Savannah, Lowland Rainforest, Freshwater zone and Mangrove Swamp zone. As a result of climate change, there are extreme weather conditions in the region that have disrupted the rain-fed agriculture. Apart from being extreme, the weather pattern has also become irregular, making it hard for small holder farmers to plan their agricultural activities. Consequently, agricultural productivity has significantly reduced posing a threat to the national food security. However, small holder farmers in these regions have found ways to adapt to these inevitable impacts of climate change. Even so, they lack enough resources and support to effectively adapt and become resilient to climate change. Therefore, it is important to understand how farmers in this region are adapting and their needs, from their point of view. Given this background, the African Group of Negotiators Experts Support (AGNES) together with the Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA), supported by the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation (BMGF) convened a 2-Day Multi-stakeholder Sub-National Workshop. The workshop aided in providing firsthand information from farmers in Southsouth and Southeast Nigeria, regarding climatic risks and impacts, the locally led adaption techniques and priority action-oriented research areas
Climate Risks and Impacts
As climate change continues to worsen, Southeast and Southsouth parts of Nigeria experience irregular rainfall patterns which are at the same time significantly heavy hence causing a lot of flooding. Parts that experience significant flooding undergo soil erosion, consequently reducing the fertility of the soil. Hence the quality and quantity of food grown over these eroded lands, and naturally denied enough water and conducive environment, is notably low.
On the other hand, there are seasons that come with very high temperatures that consequently increase the heat. Further, there has been an increase in extreme weather events such as drought among others. Accordingly, agricultural productivity has been negatively impacted, posing a huge threat on national food security. As a result, farmers in all agricultural subsectors experience an increase in cost of production and the impact is further heightened by meagre harvests as a result of unreliable rainfall patterns.
How Small holder farmers adapt to climate risks and impacts
Farmers in Southeast and South-South Nigeria are creatively responding to climate change. Many are using solar energy to power dryers for their crops and pumps for irrigation. Crop farmers are choosing plants that can withstand the changing weather and growing a variety of crops. Livestock and fish farmers are breeding animals and fish that are better suited tone conditions. To conserve resources, farmers are moving away from traditional grazing practices. Overall, these farmers are adopting sustainable farming methods to adapt to the changing climate
Accelerating the agricultural adaption of small-scale farmers in Southeast and Southsouth Nigeria
There is need to compliment farmers efforts by scaling up their practices to accelerate their agricultural adaption. First, it is necessary for collaboration and information sharing among stakeholders to upscale awareness creation and education on adaption to climate change using local practices. Second, there should be effective and massive training and building capacity of the farmers to keep them prepared for adverse weather patterns.
Call to action
It is therefore necessary for researchers to pay attention to the direct needs of farmers in these regions for the sake of effectively speeding up their adaptation rate. According to farmers there should be action-oriented research investigating floods and how to control them. Also, research on climate resilient seeds and breeds will go a long way in accelerating their adaptation. Lastly, there are pests and diseases that are believed to be an impact of climate change. There is need to research on them and figure out the best ways of controlling them.