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Nigeria: Climate Change, Threat to Food Security - Sultan
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Leadership (Abuja)
1 July 2008
Posted to the web 1 July 2008
Sokoto
Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa'adu Abubakar, has said that climate change constitutes a "great" threat to the nation's food security.
Abubakar said this at a three-day national workshop on the "Challenges on Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihood' in Sokoto.
The workshop was organised by the Federal Ministry of Environment in collaboration with Heinrich Boll Foundation (HBF), a Nigeria-based German NGO.
Represented by Amb. Bala Sokoto, the Sultan noted that the phenomenon had "drastically" affected rainfall pattern, temperature and the soil, which, he said, were the three major components of agricultural production.
He said the manifestation of desertification due to climate change had resulted to the loss of soil nutrients and fertility, soil water and low crop yield.
According to him, the northern part of the country is the worst hit with more than 952,000 hectares of agricultural productive land lost annually to desert encroachment.
Abubakar noted that the government had not been spending the required percentage of the budget on agriculture.
He said: "The security of a nation is not in weapons or money but in sufficiency in food production and sustainability that will lead to security.
"Any country with surplus food is secured."
The sultan stressed the urgent need to reposition the agricultural sector to ensure food security and guarantee dividends for the rural farmers who feed the nation.
"Government should stop paying lip service to the agricultural sector. It should create a level playing ground for private investors to come in.
"You can't do it all alone because a lot still needs to be done to attain the required food security," Abubakar said.
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He, therefore, urged the three tiers of government to invest more in agriculture as many farmers no longer had access to land due to desertification. (NAN)
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