The Nigerian AgriBusiness Group (NABG) and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector have called for adoption of climate- smart agriculture (CSA) to improve food productivity, create job and fight the scourge of poverty in Nigeria.
This call was made at a two-day stakeholders workshop held in Abuja, aimed at developing a national framework for climate-smart agriculture and promoting agribusiness advocacy for smallholder farmers with the theme “Cleaner, safer, rewarding agriculture”.
CSA is an approach that helps guide actions to transform agri-food systems towards green and climate resilient practices, as well as reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions to sustainably increase agricultural productivity and income.
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President of NABG, Emmanuel Ijewere, while speaking with journalists, noted that the program is meant to create a sustainable agricultural framework, for Nigerian youths to have an opportunity to work and use the land more efficiently through technology, thereby reducing food importation.
Ijewere added that climate-smart agriculture is extremely important because the climate of the world is changing and every country has a specific responsibility to adjust to the changes, in order to address the damage that has been done to the climate.
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“At the end of the day, it is how to increase the yield, improve the soil, improve the environment and reduce the poverty of the people to ensure food security and to help in the diversification, of the Nigerian economy, “he said.
Director General of NABG, Dr Manzo Maigari, hinted that climate-smart agriculture was developed to help farmers mitigate the impact of climate change by promoting better yields with minimum effort while also protecting the environment.
“However, what is important here is that most of the practices by which small holder farmers engage are unsustainable, so without knowing it, farmers engage in practices that harm them. In other words, those practices are such that they inflict harm on them. “
