Editorial- Calling the states government on NiMet warning

The Minister of Aviation and Eurospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamu, Senior Advocate of Nigeria ( SAN) while unveiling 2024 Seasonal Climate Predictions ( SCP) said that lovers of yam should expect late harvest of the crop, and this also implies many other produce in the region will be affected as well except if our farmers are well educated about climate smart farmings with constant relevant information on what to do to overcome low amount of rainfall requirements to crops as compared to the previous years.

These weather predictions being released by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency ( NiMet) under the leadership of Prof. Charles Anosike was advised not to be taken as a doom towards the nation's economic development by the Minister, but rather a warning call to ensure effective planning by the captains of industry and policy makers to many sectors of the economy especially the food system in order to ensure effective sustainability and food security.

Rains have been scientifically predicted to be shorter in variations among the 36 states of the federation including FCT while specifically the North Central states of Nigeria has been said to expect longer delay of rain as the implication of such especially for farming communities are need for education on farming during drought and heat periods where the use of improved seeds with shorter maturity times to harvest with the low amount of rainfalls will be taught to farmers.

What this brings to mind is the appalling state of our Agricultural extension services that are dead at all the three tiers of government which translates that our farmers may face serious challenges this year if they are not properly guilded in best agronomics practices in view of climate change rain and temperature predictions for the running year.

Since the essence of the Climate prescriptions is to enable policy makers to be alerted on what actions to be taken in order to prevent the vagaries of the forecast which the buck in the Agric sector falls on states and local government where food farmings are actually being done with the help of extension workers.

The question is how many states have functional extension workers?

You can ask the agricultural research Institutes in Nigeria how their work have been made easier during the Annual Cropping and Research Extension Farmers Inputs Linkage System (REFILS) meetings as there are evidence of none performance of the Agricultural Development Program ( ADP) as it used to be when it was being funded by the World Bank. 

Most states' ADP are dead as they hardly attend monthly and annual research meetings where feedback performances of released improved technologies are being reported for actionable improvement.

With this SCP release with present state of moribund extension workers in most states of the federation including FCT, then the fear of food shortage for year 2024 is very high except a quick action is taken by all the states and local governments to reverse the popular trend by ensuring partnership with the NiMet and agricutural research institutes through their extension departments on what to do in order to avert the impact of this prediction on food security in the year 2024.

The time is now because delay may be very grievous on our food security system that is already challenged with high prices of food coupled with hunger as farmers are being vulnerable to insecurity that is preventing them from going to the farm.

SCP should be used to bring strong synergy between the research and technologies transfer through extension officers to farmers for pumper harvest in order to avoid imminent food scarcity the nation might face between now and next year by the time the prediction begins to take its tolls when actions are taken to prevent its negative impact.

All efforts to call the attention of FG, and particularly the states and local governments to the revival of extension workers back to the ways it used to be when being sponsored by the world Bank  have been falling on the deaf ears that must be awakened in view of the new SCP. A food insecured nation is no nation. All hands must be on deck to ensure food security with the use of appropriate NiMet SCP to ensure climate smart agriculture.