By Greg Odogwu
No Nigerian citizen can deny the fact that 2024 is one of the hottest in the country’s living memory. We all felt the scorching heat between February and May, and are still feeling it, because the year still has a long way to go. Many can attest to the shocking reality that even after celebrating the arrival of the rainy season, there is still warmth even in the midst of the cold showers. Hence, there is no better example to show how bad climate change has become than this paradox of heat in the depth of deluge.
This is why it was not surprising that the latest data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms that last Sunday, July 21, was the hottest day ever measured on Earth. Alas, Nigerian farmers have been served the worst of the raw deal. Some of them put their seeds in the ground with the hope that the rains had arrived, only to have a fresh wave of heat kill everything they put in the ground. It is really saddening to witness this reality, considering that the Nigerian Meteorological Agency had already, at the beginning of the year, published the weather and climate forecast for 2024, in a project known as the Seasonal Climate Prediction. This is why early warnings are no longer enough. We must match them with early actions in order to mitigate climate risks.
The Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of NiMet, Prof. Charles Anosike, at the Tree Planting and Climate Action Summit themed ‘Tree-mendous Strategy for a Sustainable Future’ held at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam, Anambra State, recently, said that NiMet carried out early warnings through the annual seasonal climate prediction, but for the effective impact of the SCP and other early warning products from the NiMet, these early warnings must be matched with early actions by all in order to mitigate the associated risks and build a more resilient society.
However, I am of the view that climate change and global warming is somewhat too technical a field to be left solely in the hands of the ordinary citizens, rudimentary service providers and other professionals. The climate experts, at individual and institutional levels, must remain in the loop of knowledge-sharing, capacity-building, adaptation and mitigation initiatives of the people and the Nigerian government. For instance, NiMet, which has the statutory responsibility of advising the government and people of Nigeria on all aspects of weather and climate, has no option but to lead the charge. Until recently, climate change was arguably an arcane field, but its influence and overriding impact on all other sectors are so intense, and, surely, evolving faster than the society can cope.
Over the years, NiMet has developed mutually beneficial partnerships with research institutions and academia across the country regarding climate and weather, which have played significant roles in improving climate knowledge, climate risk management, disaster risk preparedness, climate appreciation and awareness among the citizenry. Therefore, as our society, in recent years, is now inundated with increased frequency and intensity of flooding, heatwaves, weather storms, droughts and other emergencies tied to these extreme weather events, we have to fall back on these already established relationships and institutional platforms to ignite and mainstream early actions.
Meteorological Services in Nigeria, which officially started in 1887, have generated a database of climate information across the length and breadth of the country, and with its meteorological stations (conventional and automatic) situated in every state of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory, it will no doubt be able to deliver on the task of guiding our farmers in these challenging times. To be sure, conversations around food security are not complete without discussing emerging meteorological realities.
For instance, this year that the SCP predicted a shorter duration of rainfall for Nasarawa State, NiMet had partnered with the Human and Environmental Development Agenda Resources Centre, with support from African Activists for Climate Justice through Oxfam, to guide the local farmers of the state, advising them to adhere to the SCP and crop-weather calendar for 2024 planting season in order to prevent losses. In the workshop, NiMet’s Chief Meteorologist (Agriculture), James Adamu, explained to the farmers that the crop-weather calendar was a veritable tool that provided timely information on best planting dates based on the seasonal climate prediction, hence adherence to it would help them to understand how each farming activity was being influenced by weather and climate. “Crop-weather calendar helps farmers to understand the time for different farming activities and the kind of additional climate information that would be useful to them. The growing season for 2024 is expected to end from October 18 to 27, the earliest cessation is predicted to be October 18 around the Karu Local Government Area while the latest is from October 27 in Doma LGA respectively,” he expatiated.
He stressed that Nasarawa State was among the states predicted to experience a short length of the growing season, and was also predicted to experience a dry spell between July and August 2024, which would last for 15 days. There were 50 participants at the workshop, including farmers and extension agents drawn from the three Senatorial districts of the state.
Indubitably, making information available to farmers would easily empower them with the requisite capacity to shift from the normal way of farming practice to smart agricultural practices. They need to apply the SCP to plant the types of crops that would survive within the window of the growing season.
Secondly, more emphasis should be put on the contribution of the extension and advisory services system in Nigeria, which has seen reforms since 2012. Yet, climate change presents a challenge which could undermine all the efforts and resources the government has invested in this vital agricultural support system. To strengthen it towards climate resilience, climate-centric work plans must encompass the links between farmers, farmer-based organisations and local communities and their ties to various production systems markets.
There should be support from local governments and sectoral ministries, with adequate resources for extension officials, including competitive salaries, adequate transportation and continuous learning processes. I have heard Nigerian farmers complain that some extension workers demand food and transport from them. This is a reflection of the bad economy, but bad for the sector.
To me, this also shows why NiMet should intensify its collaborative efforts towards fostering climate actions. Some of the initiatives to bolster extension services are temporal, like the N-Power programme, which hired 100, 000 youth in extension. The initiatives tend to exit with the administration that introduced it, especially when the next government cannot sustain the workers’ allowances. Therefore, in such a fluid environment, an agency like NiMet is required to give overriding institutional stability to the entire process, not only by equipping these young Nigerians with climate knowledge but by providing linkages to agro-dealers and private sector actors who may wish to adopt climate action.
In all, with human-induced climate change leading to more extreme weather and climate conditions, the need for effective multi-hazard early warning systems is more crucial than ever. Systems that warn people of impending storms, floods or droughts and support action are not a luxury but cost-effective tools that save lives, reduce economic losses, and provide a nearly tenfold return on investment. In line with the United Nations’ Early Warnings for All Initiative, Nigeria has already established itself in the sector, with NiMet extending its services to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and other African countries. The only thing left is to put our money where our mouth is.
