No fewer than 80 maize farmers selected from the three senatorial districts of Lagos State have been trained on climate smart farming. The farmers are expected to step down what they have learnt to other farmers in their various clusters and communities. The Lagos State Coordinator, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Olayinka Akeredolu, while speaking at the National Agriculture Development Productivity for the year 2023, held at the Lagos State Agricultural Development Authority, Oko-Oba, said that the training programme was organised to assist maize farmers in the state to ameliorate the effect of climate change on their production.
She said in the year 2022, there were lot of flooding all over Nigeria, which affected the production of many crops and even affected animal production too, saying “Today, we are talking about maize, how our farmers can produce maize in spite of climate change, how they can still make profit in spite of climate change and what they can do to ensure that they don’t have losses on their production. The facilitator of the training, Dr. Sadiku Bukola, while speaking said, that the impact of climate change on food production was enormous and that maize was one of the key crops in Lagos State, which the production was significantly affected by the impact of climate change.
At the event, she demonstrated to the farmers how they can go about their cropping, how they can cope with climate change so that it would not have a negative effect on their productivity. Sadiku added that at the end of the training, measures would be put in place to ensure that the farmers are adequately monitored towards embracing climate smart agriculture so that at the end of the day, the state would be food secured. The Programme Manager of LSADA, Tawakaltu Kosoko, while speaking, said that the programme was organised to train extension officers and maize farmers in the state due to the present situation in climate change. Kosoko, who was represented at the training by the Director, Extension Services of LSADA, Olubukola Ebhota, said that what the state was aiming at, was bountiful harvest and that they want farmers to plant and get results.
“This issue of climate has been an issue for the past few years that the farmers are unable to meet up what is supposed to be the output of what they are planting, that is the essence of this training. We have our farmers and our extension agents, who will be trained on the current situation in climate so that as they are going to start farming activity of this season, they will be able to plan accordingly and get results. Why we are doing this for our farmers is that we want them to get more yield of whatever they are planting, we don’t want a situation whereby climate change will affect their production, their income and at the same time, affect their living standard”, she added.
