Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) says it is partnering federal and state governments to mitigate the impact of climate change on agricultural production to ensure food security.

AGRA’s country director, Rufus Idris, disclosed this on Tuesday during a stakeholders’ programme in Kaduna.

Mr Sani said the organisation was working in Nigeria, in particular, to help support food system transformation to ensure that Nigeria can grow enough food to feed itself.

He said, “For many years, AGRA has worked in Nigeria with a lot of partners to help transform that space. One of our unique models of engagement is working through a consortia model, as in the past couple of years, we have had a couple of consortia in Kaduna, Niger.

”We also had a gender consortium with several partners from the private sector, government, NGOs and farmers, working to address major issues. Importantly, we are addressing the issue of resilience that comes with shocks from climate change impact and those shocks require us to embrace more of smart climate agricultural practices.”

Mr Sani  explained that the consortiums “are working heavily to help farmers embrace innovations in technology that can make them be more climate-smart and respond to issues of droughts, pests, floods and the like.”

He said the engagement with the consortiums had yielded good results in the past couple of years. He added that from some of the results, farmers now adopt technology that helps them boost their yield.

Mr Sani said, “For instance, people cultivating maize have been able to see growth from two to at least four metric tons per hectare. People who cultivate rice have had a boost from two to 4.2 metric tons per hectare and this has also increased their income as well. 

“Also, we have been able to see that distance between where farmers have to travel to access inputs. Distances that in the past that used to be more than 29km have been reduced within those region to 10 or less kms, which is also a good improvement.”

(NAN)