A public-private exemplar in socioeconomic development

CLIMATE resilience and smart agriculture are fast gaining popularity all over the world. Agriculture and weather experts have reiterated the need for farmers to develop the capability to adapt to climate change, especially considering the precariousness of rainfall and rainy seasons in recent years. One of the achievements of climate change adaptation is the development of drought resistant varieties of some crops, notably rice, which has just been known to flourish in dry season farming despite being a traditionally wet season crop.

It is against this background that the recent efforts being made by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) to provide science-based forecast to help its various stakeholders cope with the risks associated with irregular rainfall and general change in climate come as a huge relief. In March last year, NiMET presented its Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP) for the country, during which it expressed its willingness and readiness to partner with any state government or private organization to downscale the SRP. SRP is part of the agency’s meteorological Early Warning System, which transmits customised, state-specific rainfall and temperature outlook for the year.

NiMET notes on its website that its report, which is also transmitted in local languages, is released to the public “in order to provide sufficient lead-time for its incorporation into decision-making processes of the various users such as policy makers, planners, farmers, water resources experts and hydropower generators.” It also provides training on interpretation and application. Of particular interest in this regard is the signing of an MoU between NiMET and the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) two weeks ago. This formal agreement is significant in many ways. It typifies the role of public private partnership in socio-economic development, especially in agriculture, which is a critical part of the non-oil sector that is considered very instrumental to the economic diversification bid of the Federal Government.

An independent charitable organization incorporated in Nigeria in 2002, the BATNF provides technical assistance to build productive capacity of smallholder farmers which lifts them from subsistence to commercial agriculture. It focuses on rice, cassava, maize, vegetables, oil palm, poultry and aquaculture value chains in the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The objective of the partnership, according to the Executive Director of BATNF, Mrs. Oluwaseyi Ashade, is for NiMET to provide weather information, including the likely period of dry spell and locations of likely flash flood occurrence to farmers who are mainly dependent on rain-fed agriculture. The partnership also entails that BATNF will collect information at the grassroots for NiMET, as explained by the outgoing Director General of NiMET, Dr. Anthony Anuforom.

• Ogundare is an agric expert based in Lagos