Climate help for Lagos farming community

Michael Simire in the Daily Independent (Nigeria): A group of migrant farmers in Lagos is a beneficiary to a flagship initiative by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) aimed at building the growers’ adaptive capacity to the effects of climate change.

As a result of changes in weather conditions and rainfall pattern that are induced by the warming of the earth, agricultural activities are increasingly being boxed into a corner, leading to production declines, food prices’ rise and purchasing power decreases.

With the spate of desertification in the north, erosion in the east and coastal erosion/ocean surge in the south and coastal areas, Nigeria seems to be having her fair share of the brunt of global warming. But a lifeline may have come to the Ebonyi Farmers Association at Igbe Community in Ikorodu in Lagos who have been at the receiving end of the precarious weather situation, courtesy of the Local Initiatives for Environmental Sustainability (LIFES), which is being supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Under a project that would span a yet-to-be-specified time-frame, LIFES intends to establish a community-based social network through the association, strengthen indigenous coping techniques and options to climate change and build local capacity for use of viable local adaptation techniques in the Igbe economy….

A market in Lagos, shot by Zouzou Wizman, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license