World Bank excludes Nigeria from climate-smart crop distribution

World Bank

World Bank has excluded Nigeria in its climate-smart crops distribution, aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change in Africa.

The apex global Bank had under its West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme, WAAPP, distributed climate-smart crop varieties as well as technologies to over 5.7 million farmers across West Africa.

But the name of Nigeria with its large population and huge farming outputs amid vast farm lands is glaringly missing in the past, present or future lists of beneficiaries to such-all important projects of the Bank.

For instance, Senegal has received 14 high-yielding, droughtresistant dry cereal varieties to boost its agricultural productivity by at least 30 percent, despite the country’s shorter rainy seasons.

Under Kenya Sustainable Land Management Project, designed to issue carbon credits, the World Bank trained over 30,000 small holder farmers in sustainable land management practices.

The Bank also delivered 10,500 tons of maize and rice seeds to 200,000 farmers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone among others.

It also assisted Vietnam in its alternative wetting and drying irrigation techniques in rice cultivation to cut water use and greenhouse gas emissions while increasing yields by up to 10 percent.

A Lagos state-based agriculturist, Mr Funso Oloke said it is very surprising that the giant of Africa like Nigeria

is not recognised in such vital agriculture project, aimed at stemming the tide of climate change. According to him, agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change and responsible for 19 to 29 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

‘’Climate-Smart agriculture as World Bank has noted will mitigate climate change’’, he stated.

World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim said at the end of the historic climate conference held in Paris, it was noted that more than 180 countries submitted their plans for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change, saying the momentum towards putting these plans into action is huge.

This year has been designated as the International Year of Soils, a United Nations campaign created to raise global awareness on the fundamental roles of soils for human life.

‘’Soils are the basis for 95 percent of the world’s food production, yet each year, we lose an estimated 24 billion tons of fertile soil to erosion and 12 million hectares of land to desertification and drought. The good news is that soil degradation can be addressed through sustainable soil management practices’’, Kim stated.

‘’As farmers in wealthier countries benefit from the wave of technological improvements, it is vital to find ways to pass these technologies to other global farmers’’, he added.

Already, the Bank has partnered with TerrAfrica on several large-scale landscape restoration projects, including a project in Niger, where 60 million trees were planted over a 12-year-period through farmer-managed natural regeneration.