The federal government and Self Help Africa have initiated moves to reduce black carbon emissions by 83 per cent and methane emissions by 61 per cent by 2030.

Carbon and methane are climate pollutants.

Temitope Fashedemi, a permanent secretary at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, disclosed this at a workshop on the Abatement of Short-Lived Climate Pollutants (SLCPs) in the Nigerian Agricultural Sector project on Thursday in Abuja.

The ministry organised the inception workshop in collaboration with Self Help Africa and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC).

Mr Fashedemi said Nigeria was one of the few countries that highlighted its commitment to reducing SLCP.

The official said it was part of the efforts to mitigate the effect of climate change in the country.

Joy Aderele, the country director of Self Help Africa, Nigeria, said SLCPs was an 18-month pilot programme that worked with 500 farmers to reduce open burning.

Ms Aderele said that Gboko LGA in Benue would be used as a pilot to demonstrate successful approaches to reducing open-field burning.

She explained that the 500 farmers would be formed into 20 groups of 25 each, selected from communities in Gboko.

Ms Aderele said 45 agricultural extension officers from across the country’s geopolitical zones participated in the project. She said the projects would facilitate the engagement of strategic stakeholders and the capacity building of government agricultural extension officers and farmers.

Ms Aderele said it was to enable the farmers and the extension agents to use best practices approaches to reduce the alternatives to open field burning while promoting ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’.

She said one of the SLCPs’ objectives was to contribute to Nigeria’s goals of low-carbon development and emissions reduction, as set out in the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) document.

“The project will contribute to achieving the goals of Nigeria’s 2019 National Action Plan to Reduce SLCPs. This aims to reduce black carbon emissions by 83 per cent and methane emissions by 61 per cent by 2030,” she said.

(NAN)