An agronomist, Mr Joseph Kaltungo, has raised concerns over the impact of climate change on food security efforts and called on the government at all levels to intensify investment in dry-season farming. He made the call on Thursday during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Gombe State, stressing that climate change issues must be taken seriously if the country needs to make progress in food security. According to him, the impact of climate change on agriculture can result in a major food crisis in the country as well as discourage farmers from vocation.
Kaltungo said climate change’s impact on agriculture was gradually affecting the incomes of farmers and pushing many of them into poverty.
He said, “In my life as an agriculturist, I have never seen a dry spell in September as witnessed in 2023. This had a severe impact on all crops and caused farmers to have great losses. “The rain stopped in September for three to four weeks at a level of translocation of photosynthesis. “This is when all crops were about removing all the foods that have been formed in the plant and depositing them either as grains, rice, ground nuts and cassava amongst others. “And this process requires water medium, soil moisture for translocation and there was no water, so translocation was impacted negatively.”
Mr Kaltungo, the former acting programme manager, Gombe State, , Agricultural Development Programme, Northeast Nigeria, said the challenge affected the yield for the 2023 cropping season. According to him, hectares of farmland where farmers could have 100 bags of rice under normal conditions produced only 10 bags, adding that the same thing happened to maize and other crops.
He said climate change, amongst other factors was gradually leading to food insecurity, hence the urgent need for governments to invest massively in agriculture, particularly in dry season farming. “As an agriculturist, I can tell you that the major solution to addressing the impact of climate change on agriculture is to increase investment in dry season farming. “In dry season farming, all factors are regulated and you can have better harvest per hectare than in wet season farming. “In dry season flood, dry spell and other issues associated with weather and climate change have no impact on crops,” the agronomist said
