The Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Charles Anosike, has said that the agency is positioned to climate proofing the economy by providing timely weather and climate information.
Prof. Anosike spoke while welcoming participants to a one-day workshop on ‘Understanding the landscape of agro-meteorological data resources and processes for facilitating climate-smart agriculture adoption’ jointly hosted by NiMet and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Abuja on Monday, 18th November 2024.
According to Prof. Anosike, “The issue of livestock has been on our minds for such a long time. I’m particularly excited that this workshop is holding at this time. It is important to note that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land stated that food systems contribute between 11 and 19 billion tons of emissions per year. Therefore, going green is the only option”.
Continuing, Professor Anosike said that stakeholders must learn and grow together and that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has clearly outlined his government’s eight-point agenda aimed at moving the Nigerian economy forward through food security, ending poverty and economic growth, and job creation. This he said necessitated the creation of a Federal Ministry of Livestock Production.
“This important workshop will engage our critical stakeholders in mapping the climate advisories that are critical to smallholder farmers. I think the major outcome will be that
we develop a solution to augment pastoralist traditional early warning systems. We need to augment the traditional models by using GIS analysis and artificial intelligence. These solutions are out there already. By using GIS analysis and artificial intelligence to monitor and predict the humanitarian vulnerability of agricultural populations in Nigeria, we can provide planners with real-time information to help manage livestock in a bid to strengthen engagement and ensure the development of early warning systems specifically for the sector to make it resilient and sustainable in advancing the UN EW4ALL initiative”, Prof. Anosike said.
Concluding, Prof. Anosike said that NiMet’s agrometeorological advisories have evolved in scope, including the concept of co-production which is supported by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). “Co-production allows critical stakeholders to be part of the production process of weather and climate information to increase the depth and improve the accuracy and relevance of the information provided. The workshop allows critical stakeholders to map the climate information advisories that are critical to smallholder farmers, and livestock keepers”.
Anthony Whitbread, Program leader, of livestock, climate, and environment at ILRI and one of the workshop facilitators said the workshop will improve the capacity of the participants, and help to identify gaps in information needs, data gathering, and the process of delivery of information to the last mile including gender and social inclusion. “Climate change has led to more frequent extreme events, it’s pushing us outside the bounds of our knowledge and our predictive systems. It is only through linking our knowledge of climate information, indigenous knowledge about how we manage crops and pastures and livestock production, and then linking it through digital systems that we can reach the many millions of farmers and livestock keepers who need this information. Over the next two or three years, we’ll be able to work with NIMET and other partners to build some of these systems”, he said.
On her part, Rupsha Banerjee, Senior Scientist, Institutions and Innovation at ILRI listed the problems being addressed at the workshop as gaps in local knowledge, limitations for climate advisory services at the country level, inconsistencies, and lack of coordination seen at the regional and continental level, provision and usage of advisories and climate solutions ad hoc, and less impactful, lack of context-specific climate information to inform policy and climate action and limited investment and innovation in climate change adaptation in food systems.
