The University has empowered farmers in the various extension outreach villages with useful agricultural information that would guide them in being mindful of their activities in their various locations, in order to get maximum yield, as they were also provided high-yielding cassava varieties for enhanced production.
This piece of advice for better farming practice was given during the Annual Integrated Pre-season Training Workshop, organised by the Agricultural Media Resources and Extension Centre (AMREC), themed “Climate Change: A Threat to Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Nigeria”, while about 200 farmers got the high-yielding cassava during another pre-season training, organised by Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (CAVA II) Project, in collaboration with AMREC, where 600 bundles of improved cassava stems were distributed.
Speaking at the occasion, Dr. Adedeji Oludare of the Department of Environmental Management and Toxicology, College of Environmental Resources Management (COLERM), defined climate change as an increase in the average global temperatures, due primarily to increases in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, emitted as a result of deforestation, construction and incineration of wastes also as water vapour, methane, nitrous oxide and chloro-fluoro carbons. He said global warming was a major threat that could lead to the melting of atmospheric ice in many areas, thus putting people at the risk of drought, floods and insufficient clean water.
He highlighted the effects of climate change to include increase in natural disasters, extreme weather, environmental refugees, shrinking of lakes that supply water for agriculture desertification, shortages of food and water and high death rate. He said Nigeria’s quest for self-sufficiency in food production may be marred by the negative effects of climate change on agriculture because every year, expectations of farmers remained dashed due to either late arrival of rainfall or excessive rainfall that resulted into flooding.He recommended that diversification of farming remained a vital option in achieving food security under a changing climate.
The Director, Community-based Farming Scheme (COBFAS), Professor Emmanuel Fakoya, who spoke on the topic, “Indigenous Knowledge by Nigerian Farmers in Ensuring Sustainability in Agricultural Productivity in the Face of Climate Change”, referred to indigenous knowledge as the skills possessed by the indigenous people and communities as being different from the knowledge generated through research centres, industries and Universities. The features of indigenous knowledge include being experience-based, linked with the sustainable use of local resources, dependence on the health of local environment and handed-down from generations. Professor Fakoya said such indigenous knowledge could be obtained from primary sources such as community members, elders, community records, extension workers, head-teachers as well as published and unpublished videos, photos, database, museum and exhibits.
He added that indigenous knowledge encouraged transparency, accountability, optimized the utility of local resources, relied heavily on genetic and physical diversity, not labour-intensive, readily available and always based on the cultural value of the community. Professor Fakoya, however, itemized the limitations of indigenous knowledge to include the challenge of replication and uneven distribution across individuals, communities and regions. To make any meaningful contribution to agricultural development, he suggested that indigenous knowledge should go hand-in-hand with modern knowledge in the face of climate change.
Dr. Mutiu Busari of the Department of Soil Science and Land Management, College of Plant Science and Crop Production (COLPLANT), while speaking on the topic, “The Roles of Climate Soil and Crop in Sustainable Agriculture in Nigeria”, said climate, soil and crop play major roles in sustainable agricultural system and that coping with such threats posed by climate change required developing appropriate adaptation and mitigation techniques. He recommended that an adequate knowledge of science of soil management was required to ensure improved crop productivity. Dr. Busari added that sustainable agriculture remained an integrated approach to crop and animal production and that the essence of sustainable agriculture was to provide food and fibre for man’s needs, enhanced environment and economic purposes. He stated that proper understanding of the roles of climate, soil and crops in the six ecological zones of Nigeria was important in ensuring food security. The presentation titled, “Sustainable Livestock Production: A Panacea for Food Security in Nigeria”, was delivered by Dr. Olajide Sogunle of the Department of Animal Production and Health, College of Animal Science and Livestock Production (COLANIM). According to Dr. Sogunle, livestock production constituted a very important component of the agricultural economy of many developing countries for multipurpose uses such as the production of fibre, fertilizer, fuel and capital accumulation. In order to encourage sustainable livestock production for food security in Nigeria, the Don proposed that there should be improved efficiency in livestock agriculture, adaptation of non-ruminant and ruminant animals to utilize local resources to produce valuable products and services by paying greater attention to the provisions of facilities and credit to small-scale producers, among others.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Olusola Oyewole, who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development), Professor Felix Salako, disclosed that the training was meant to further broaden and strengthen the relationship between FUNAAB and stakeholders in agricultural sector in Ogun State and beyond. He added that the workshop was in line with the University’s vision towards attaining national agricultural development and an environmentally-friendly society. The Vice-Chancellor appealed to farmers from the University’s extension villages such as Ijale-Orile, Daodu, Akintobi, Asebisetan, Odeda, Ilewo Orile, Olorunda, that were present at the event, to take full advantage of the workshop to broaden their knowledge on ways of reducing the effects of climate change.
Welcoming the farmers, the then Director of AMREC, Professor Carolyn Afolami, said it was the responsibility of AMREC to deliver the dividends of agricultural research to farmers and farming families for enhanced agricultural productivity and improvement in their livelihood. She added that farmers’ participation as at this programme would serve as a means to improving their existing knowledge of healthy environmental practices, urging the participants to feel free to ask questions and seek clarifications, where necessary.
Similarly, as the planting season draws nearer, farmers at the Olorunda Community in Abeokuta North Local Government Area of the state, have been supported with high-yielding cassava varieties for cultivation. Speaking at the pre-season training, tagged “Moving from Subsistence to Lucrative Business”, the CAVA II Country Technical Expert on Cassava Production, Mr. Stephen Olonade, said cassava production was gradually moving away from subsistence to a lucrative business, adding that farmers could only benefit effectively in the flourishing sub-sector, if they embraced good agronomic practices. 
According to him, “huge markets exist in the cassava sub-sector particularly, in value chains such as ethanol, High Quality Cassava Flour, starch, grits and chips. The CAVA II project is committed to linking up farmers with these markets, but we want them to adopt new productivity enhancing technologies in order to benefit effectively from these lucrative value chains. With good farming practices, farmers can increase their yield by 25 percent and this will invariably increase their incomes”. Mr. Olukayode Adesanya from AMREC, who led the pre-season training, pointed out that in the course of making farmers transit from subsistence to commercial farming, efforts should be geared towards ensuring that farmers had access to quality stems and are aware of good farming practices suitable for cassava cultivation.
He said, “Hitherto farmers have been practicing agriculture at subsistence level, they don’t believe that they can cultivate cassava at a level where they can get more revenue. But we believe that if we train them on good farming practices and make high-yielding cassava varieties accessible to them, they will be able earn more revenue from their production. AMREC, as one of the service providers for CAVA II Nigeria has been given the mandate to empower smallholder cassava farmers through the establishment of demonstration plots, organise trainings that will equip them with the necessary skills which will improve their production as well as give them a token of improved varieties of cassava”.
The Procurement Manager, Allied Atlantic Distillers Limited, Mr. Rauf Omotara, emphasised on the opportunities that abound in the cassava sub-sector. He said, “There is every need for farmers to increase their production because now, there is market for them to sell their cassava roots. Normally, if a farmer cultivates cassava, the average yield he gets is 15 tonnes per hectare, however with all these trainings that the CAVA II project is giving the farmers, they can get up to 35 tonnes per hectare. The more roots they harvest, the more profit they get”.
He added, “If a farmer cultivates a cassava variety with high starch content, he earns more money. For instance, in my company, fresh cassava roots with starch content above 26 percent is bought at a fixed price of N13,000 per tonne. So, my message to farmers is that they should go out there and increase their cultivation, because there is a ready-market for their yields”. Concluding the pre-season training, Mr. Adesanya added that “farmers should be careful about site selection. They should be mindful of the areas that they choose for their farming. Farmers should not choose a soil full of gravels for cultivation because this will disturb the development of the roots, instead they should choose a sandy-loamy soil which drains easily and is not water logged. They should adopt the use of herbicides in controlling weeds instead of employing labourers to do manual wedding, this will save them a lot of money and eventually lower cost production. again, they should use improved varieties of cassava that is disease-resistant, especially the ones that have been worked on by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA)”.
To ensure that the farmers cultivate cassava varieties with high starch content, which attract more price than the ones with low starch content, 600 bundles of improved cassava varieties, namely: TME 419 and TMS 96/1632 were also given out to them free-of-charge. The two varieties, which were given to the farmers, were chosen because they have high starch content and potential of producing 35 tonnes per hectare if the right agriculture practices are adopted by the farmers.
