In Gambia, FAO trains farmers on DRR, climate change

Samba Jawo in AllAfrica.com via the Daily Observer (Banjul, Gambia): The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) recently held a two-day capacity building for farmers on Disaster Risk Reduction and adaptation to climate change at Somita Mixed Farming Centre in Foni, West Coast Region.

Representing the FAO country representative in Banjul, the assistant representative of FAO, Mariatou Faal-Njie, said climate change is a threat to food security. She therefore noted the importance of building the capacities of farmers on how to combat, prevent and mitigate climate change at community level.

Madam Faal-Njie said the focus of the training is to ensure that they build the capacity of communities and targeted vulnerable households and people, as a fundamental mechanism to address their low resilience to hazards such as drought and floods.

Essa Khan, FAO disaster risk reduction consultant, recalled that Gambia government, represented by the Ministry of Agriculture, signed a Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) with FAO in response to 2011 crop failure and 2012 severe whether condition in The Gambia.

This TCP, he said, enabled FAO to provide emergency assistance to households in the forms of seeds and fertilizer in order to restore their productive capacity. "However, given the phenomenon of successive droughts and floods such emergency assistance is important and relevant but their sustainability in the face of environmental risk factors cannot be guaranteed," he stated. Khan went on to outline the risk factors, which he said include soil erosion, salt intrusion, land degradation, potential sea level rise, and low soil nutrient levels. He therefore noted that the need to change the way they respond to crisis in the wake of aforementioned challenges to flood security should to be given due attention....

A street scene in Banjul, shot by Atamari, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license