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Oxfam wants govt to build farmers’ resilience to climate change

By Editor
25 October 2015   |   8:51 pm
AS the national climate change adaptation strategy and action plan for climate change in Nigeria – NASPA-CCN indicated that climate change is already having significant impacts in Nigeria, and these impacts are expected to increase in the future, with a recent estimates’ suggestion that in the absence of adaptation......
Climate change hurts agriculture and hits farmers hardest

Climate change hurts agriculture and hits farmers hardest

AS the national climate change adaptation strategy and action plan for climate change in Nigeria – NASPA-CCN indicated that climate change is already having significant impacts in Nigeria, and these impacts are expected to increase in the future, with a recent estimates’ suggestion that in the absence of adaptation, climate change could result in losses of between 2percent and 11percent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020.

Besides, new report from the International Development Agency, Oxfam “Africa’s Smallholders Adapting to Climate Change”, indicated that the continent’s food system is under threat as her smallholder farmers struggle on the front lines against the consequences of climate change.

According to Oxfam report, citizens across Africa mark world food day in October 2015, it was observed that sixty percent of working women in Africa depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

At the marking of World Food Day last week, the Country Director of Oxfam in Nigeria, Jan Rogge, in Abuja, said that at the Paris climate negotiations coming up in December, there is need for a commitment to achieve a minimum of 50percent of public funds being allocated to adaptation in the us $100bn goal by 2020, and a funding target for adaptation in the new climate agreement that prioritizes the needs of the most vulnerable women and men across Africa.

Adaptation is both technology and knowledge-intensive. Agricultural investments have suffered from underinvestment in this vital area, with technical and input solutions frequently prioritised over increasing knowledge and skills“, added Rogge, stating that women food producers need to receive more adaptation funding to develop knowledge and skills so that they are able to change how they produce food in the face of a changing climate.

It was also stated that climate change threatens to erode progress to reduce extreme poverty as it undermines vulnerable agricultural systems. “Nowhere will that be felt more than in the semi-arid areas of Africa where changing rainfall patterns and rising temperatures are already reducing the productivity of vital cereal crops”, the body.

Oxfam has advised Nigerian government to invest in social safety nets and food reserves to reduce inequality and extreme poverty adding that implementation of the national agricultural resilience framework will reduce food and nutrition vulnerability and enhance resilience for poor farmers, especially women.

According to Policy Research and Advocacy Coordinator, Oxfam in Nigeria, Abdulazeez Musa, women food producers need to receive more adaptation funding to develop knowledge and skills so that they are able to change how they produce food in the face of a changing climate. “Most importantly, smallholder producers will be more successful if they receive support that combines knowledge from seasonal forecasts, climate change scenarios, differences between crop varieties, agricultural technologies and techniques, with their own personal experience.

Women farmers need to be prioritized for agricultural support services, and be consulted in policies and processes that are determining national agricultural strategies.

Besides, smallholder producers will be more successful if they receive support that combines knowledge from seasonal forecasts, climate change scenarios, differences between crop varieties, agricultural technologies and techniques, with their own personal experience.
“These loss estimates could rise to between 6 percent and 30percent by the year 2050, and is equivalent to between n15 trillion (us$100 billion) and n69 trillion (us$460 billion), while large projected costs are the result of a wide range of climate change impacts affecting all sectors in Nigeria with agriculture being the most vulnerable”.

Oxfam regretted that while rich countries have agreed to help countries in Africa adapt to climate change, the reality is that Africa is not receiving what it needs to cope. the latest estimates from the OECD on the developed countries’ Copenhagen commitment to mobilise $100bn a year by 2020 shows that despite overall rises in climate finance, mitigation projects are receiving more than three-quarters of these funds (77percent), with only 16 per cent going to adaptation , leaving a growing adaptation gap.

Oxfam estimates that Sub-Sahara African countries are already spending around us $5bn of their own resources on adaptation, but this isn’t enough to fill a widening gap. Ethiopia estimates their annual needs for climate change adaptation at us $7.5bn and yet have been only able to allocate $440m for adaptation programmes. Ghana, one of Africa’s smallest countries, estimates they need us $1.3bn annually but Oxfam’s report shows they have spent just 210m or 2% of their national budget.

Farmers face the double challenge of lacking adaptation support on top of historic underinvestment in agriculture. The 2003 Maputo agreement set targets for African governments to invest at least 10 per cent of their national budgets in the agricultural sector. Eleven years later, only nine of the 54 African union member states have met this target, and only seven have met the target consistently, in most years. This year, Nigeria has allocated only 0.89 per cent of its national budget to agriculture.

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