How poor agricultural practices aggravate climate change

Concerns have been raised over how agriculture – for industrial raw materials, feeds for animals and food for man – has been contributing to global warming and drastic climate change following inorganic and poor practices.

Population growth, higher food demand and rapid industrialisation have put pressure on the environment, the forest and intensification of inorganic substances such as fertiliser, herbicides and insecticides, which, in turn, have resulted in erosion, land degradation, desert expansion and forest depletion.

Demand for balanced diets and the need for protein sources have also contributed to intensive system of animal production, putting much more pressure on land for grain cultivation and land overuse.

Factors above have contributed immensely to low rainfall yearly, elongated droughts and extreme weather conditions which also affect food production negatively.

A global body monitoring climate change and allied matters, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), has said substantial climate change has started since the 1950s, “and that the global mean surface air temperature may increase by 0.4 to 2.6°C in the second half of the 21st Century, largely depending precautions and mitigation.”

To the organisation, food production system is already a major source of greenhouse gas emissions globally, and the outlook for aggravation looks gloomy.

The IPCC states, in a report, that commercial and intensified agriculture with mechanisation necessitates extensive “land clearing, stump removal, harrowing and ploughing of massive farmland. Mechanisation is to compensate for reduced production, which is caused in part by effects of climate change, such as drought, flooding and pest infestation.”

Its report also says it is estimated that the demand for livestock products will grow by over 70 per cent between 2005 and 2050, which might aggravate gas emission, over-grazing and intensification of grain production for use in animal feeds production.

The Director-General, Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Prof. Hussaini Ibrahim, said the global timber sector currently faces the dual challenges of meeting the growing demand of quality timber products and minimising possible adverse impacts on the environment and on forest degradation and deforestation.

The World Bank has also forecast that global timber demand is to quadruple by 2050. As a result, there is growing global concern of fulfilling increasing demand for timber products without deteriorating the forest resources.

Prof. Hussaini said “wood processing affects the environment and promotes forest degradation and deforestation.” He added that the rate of deforestation is expected to increase by 35 per cent in the next five years in view of the high rate of urbanisation, housing construction and poor wood processing practices.

However, he said this could be addressed by promoting best practices in the industry to mitigate forest degradation and deforestation with the accompanying environmental challenges.

He explained that the forestry sector in general and removal of trees through deforestation contribute up to 17 per cent of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission into the atmosphere.

And in Nigeria, the present methods of wood processing by cottage, small and medium enterprises subject the final products to short shelf life. The products therefore require frequent replacement. For instance, most SME operators use air drying method.  In most cases, because of the issue of time and need for immediate profit, wood products are not fully dried before usage, leading to frequent replacements, and hence, the resort to the forest for fresh wood.

“Frequent replacements mean recourse to virgin lumber and this frequently leads to forest degradation and deforestation. Drying is one key step in processing timber into high-value finished products. This is why research is being conducted globally into optimal drying technology in different climes,” he added.

One of the objectives, he explained, is to reduce deforestation as the world continues to lose some 15 million hectares of forests every year.

According to him, deforestation and forest degradation directly threaten as many as 400 million people, including 50 million forest indigenous people who depend on forest for subsistence in sub-Saharan Africa. Deforestation estimates for Nigeria is about six per cent yearly.

Another activity of farmers and herders that contribute to climate change is bush burning. Every year, herders set grassland, especially in arid and semi-arid zones, ablaze to facilitate offshoot of tender grasses for grazing. Also, most farmers cut, slash and burn bush in land preparation. These activities of herders and farmers deplete the forest covered areas yearly, and contribute to global warming.

An expert and Director-General of the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), Prof. Adeshola Adepoju, had, in an interview with The Guardian, suggested some ways of resolving environmental conflicts trailing some agricultural practices. One of them is agroforestry.

“The best way is to combine arable crops with trees. The model has always been there, but the farmers would say they could not wait for the trees to bring returns after 25 or 30 years.”

He said FRIN had worked on about 10 Nigerian indigenous trees by shortening their gestation periods from 25 to 30 years the wild varieties would take to a maximum of seven years.

He said wild variety of bitter kola sample, for instance, would take up to 30 years to fruit, but with improved variety developed by FRIN, it would take three years now.

“If you intercrop bitter kola trees with beans or maize, in the first three to five years, you will still use the land for arable farming, and in five years, the returns on the economic trees will start flowing in. The economic trees will give you the minimum of 50 times of the arable crops. Whatever you get from bitter kola trees would be far better than cultivating maize or beans. And by the time they form canopies, you could be getting some rewards too,” he had said.