Experts and stakeholders under Civil Organisations Research Advocacy and Funding Initiatives Development (CORAFID), have said that climate change and other negative factors inhibiting the success of agriculture in Benue State are signs of threat to food security in the country.
The chairman and founder of CORAFID, Nathaniel Awuapila who spoke at a panel discussion, titled: “Agriculture Conundrum in the Benue Valley and the Impact of Climate Change”, said climate change and other negative factors has brought desertification leading to dwindling crops yield in the state which he said if not tackle will ground the food security of the nation.
He said, “Nigeria from 2020 to date according to hydrological agency has continue to lose over 350,000 hectares of Arable land representing 45 per cent annually due to climate change.
“Climate change is both natural and man-made which has affected the environment and agriculture in the state, thereby discouraging most farmers to go into crop production because of low and poor quality of yields.
“This panel is carefully chosen to brainstorm on ways that will help the government to make policies that will help in mitigating the negative impact of climate change on the environment in Benue and Nigeria at large,” he said.
Awuapila lamented a situation where government is reluctant in setting an office in charge of climate change issues even as he said that the mass exodus of herdsmen across the continent to Nigeria which has claimed so many lives and as well chased residents out of their ancestral homes is as a result of climate change which he called for drastic action.
In an interview with the convener of the panel, Barr. Joseph Gbagyo, decried the absence of policy direction from the government to end issues of climate change, saying, “at the moment there is no serious policy direction in the state as regard the issue of climate change even though the state government through the state assembly has enacted Climate Act 2021 which is yet to be domesticated”.
While calling on the government to make policies that will help end climate change, Gbagyo said, the impact of climate change on agriculture in the state is enormous that is why CORAFID through its research programme decide to come up with this self-funded project to collaborate with the relevant stakeholders to nib in the bud the menace of climate change.
