Minister warns on desert
encroachment..
The Country Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of
the United Nations (FAO)in Nigeria, Mr. Suffyan
Koroma has highlighted the five pillars of its five-year framework in Nigeria.
He stated them at the launch a five-year strategic Country Programme Framework
(CPF) toward enhanced food security in Abuja.
He itemised the pillars as follows:“the first one is to strengthen
national food and nutrition security through enhanced nutrition sensitive and
climate smart food systems, the second pillar is to support appropriate and
operationally effective agricultural policy and regulatory framework. The third
one is to support Nigeria’s economy diversification agenda and the promotion of
decent employment for youth and women. The fourth pillar is to improve
efficient and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems, while
the fifth pillar is to enhance disaster risk reduction, resilience building and
emergency management towards strengthening the humanitarian Development nexus”.
Koroma explained that the priority areas of the framework were
well-defined in line with the government’s development objectives as enshrined
in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), the Agricultural Promotion
Policy (APP) and other related policy strategy documents, adding that the
priority areas would represent the main focus of FAO work in Nigeria to achieve
Zero Hunger and would be implemented in a way that it would contribute to the
attainment of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development.
He added that the 2018 – 2022 Country Programming Framework (CPF),
defines the development priorities for collaboration between FAO and government
of Nigeria whose outcome and outputs contributes towards achieving national and
regional priorities, as well as corporate results and goals, would guide the
organisation’s engagement with Nigeria over the next five years.
He called for and promised support for Nigeria’s economic
diversification agenda and promotion of decent employment for youth and women
in agricultural value chain and disaster reduction, the creation of enabling
policy environment for disaster risk reduction and management, amongst others.
Speaking at the event, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh commended the effort of FAO activities on
enhancing food security in Nigeria, pointing out that for 40 years, FAO had
been partnering with government providing technical, policy, financial and
administrative support to a wide range of initiatives.
He said that it was important for the stakeholders to cooperate with the
organisation for the successful implementation of the framework in the face of
climate change, warning on the danger in tree cutting, saying that it would
result in desert encroachment in the future, which would have dire consequences
on agriculture and environment.
The minister noted “that the new danger facing us is that of tree
falling everywhere in the country, where people are engaged in cutting down
trees to produce firewood even for export. Most people do not realise that
deserts are coming at a terrible speed, and the desert is closer than we
imagined, and all you need for the desert to prosper is for trees to be cut
down. As the desert approaches us, we are facing difficulties with finding the
right kind of seeds to plant which can endure high temperatures and also give
us good yields for nourishing ourselves,”
Also speaking, the representative of the World Bank, Mr. Tunji Oredipe
pledged the support of the World Bank towards achieving greater success in
Nigeria by being fully committed to helping the three tiers of government to
reduce poverty and foster prosperity for all Nigerians.
He noted that, “World Bank continues to provide technical support in the
areas of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan mid-term review, power sector
reform, Public-Private Partnerships as well as population management, not only in the areas of agriculture and food
security.”
Stakeholders noted that climate change was likely to contribute substantially
to food insecurity; water required for food production may become scarcer due
to increased crop water use and drought. Competition for land may increase as
certain areas become climatically unsuitable for production. In addition,
extreme weather events, associated with climate change may cause sudden
reductions in agricultural productivity, leading to rapid price increases.
They also observed that rising prices have forced growing numbers of
local people into poverty, providing a sobering demonstration of how the
influence of climate change can result in food insecurity.
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