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Showing posts with label Agro-experts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agro-experts. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Agro-experts outline how to survive drought _ NaijaAgroNet

Although preventing or mitigating drought impacts could be cheaper than providing drought relief, this does not necessarily translate into action through planning, budget allocations and changes in the institutions' behavior, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), reports NaijaAgroNet.

In the latest United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report available to NaijaAgroNet, experts at FAO outlined how to survive drought.

As said by them, providing emergency food assistance, access to water, fodder, and creating jobs are the most common approaches adopted by most governments when supporting drought-stricken populations.

They noted that while these are essential to saving lives and alleviate hunger, these also have several limitations as the above approaches do not help vulnerable populations become more resilient to future shocks.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that many countries do not have a structure dedicated to drought and drought action plans, stressing that coordination at the highest levels of governments when planning for droughts also need reinforcing.

“Current agricultural policies are rendering land more degraded and impoverished, and need to be re-examined to mitigate the impacts of drought,” they posited.

NaijaAgroNet noted that the report had argued that developing and implementing national drought management policies should be consistent with the country's development objectives as well as establishing early warning systems are essential.

It recommends disseminating technologies to combat drought, and support policies and incentives to use land and water resources rationally.

Growing drought-tolerant, fast maturing and watershed crops, and encouraging advanced methods of irrigation (including drip and spray irrigation) are some of the measures that should be adopted at larger scale to combat climate change.

Setting parcels of land apart to grow trees or small trees in agricultural fields and pastures to ensure their growth is a practice that can generate multiple-use trees to mitigate impacts of droughts.

Traditional livestock herding practices including keeping stocking rates low and moving herds when forage is low, capable of reducing risk of overgrazing and land degradation.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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