Climate Change: An environmentalist advocates urban farming, cautions on foreign seeds

 

The Executive Director, Global Initiative for Food Security and Eco-System ( GIFSES), Dr. Micheal Terungwa David has encouraged Nigerians to explore the potential in urban farming to stem climate change vagaries on food production, just as he warned against much dependency on foreign seeds against our conventional ones.

Dr. Micheal Terungwa David, speaking on the National Television Authority (NTA), International Frontier recently pointed out that urban farming acceptability by Nigerians would increase food availability organically as available spaces within the city centres and in the Internally Displaced Persons ( IDPs) areas are effectively utilized to increase food production in an organic way round the planting seasons.

The ED,  GIFSES admitted that the climate change challenges have changed the pattern of farming, stressed that farmers need more information on climate-smart farming towards sustainable food security with eco-friendly practices of using the right pesticide and herbicide to ensure soil regenerative quality.

" With climate change, rain patterns have changed, and many farmers don't have the right weather information to know when to plant during rainy season because of cessation and heat against planted crops. The impact is that all their inputs and savings have gone. But with this urban farming concept, you can farm all year round without waiting for rain-fed farming, as you can use irrigation within the neighborhood."

He said further, " We cannot continue to depend on rain-fed agriculture to grow our food. One of the joy of growing our food is that it will make us grow organically with zero chemicals, as you are also sure of where your food is coming from."

Speaking on our growing population and challenges in agriculture, Dr. Terungwa David said that our practices must incorporate modern technologies to grow food, adding that caution must be taken in the use of improved seed varieties, especially when it comes to genetically modified ones.

He argued we can lose our food taste and culture to a few foreign seed companies that control the global seeds at the expense of our conventional ones, saying, "This should be looked at as national insecurity."

He stressed that some of the technologies farmers have adopted were already destroying our soil and environment because they didn't know the quantity of pesticides and herbicides to apply at once.

He emphasized the need to increase value addition to agricultural production, saying this would enhance premium price, as youths may not necessarily be food producers but can harness potential at the value chain's end of productivity.

The ED stated, " Agriculture must not be seen as an old man's job. A lot of young people can come into the value addition through processing without necessarily going into production. For instance, a bottle of cashew nuts in the supermarket costs N5k when it has been processed."