By Victor Nwegede, Abakaliki
The Non-Governmental Organization NGo, known as the Neighbourhood Environment Watch Foundation, with the support from the West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), has organized a 3-day practical training workshop for smallholder farmers in Abakaliki LGA of Ebonyi State on smart agricultural practices.
Nigerian Pilot reports that over 40 farmers, including males and females, from Edda and Enyigba communities in Abakaliki LGA were the beneficiaries of the capacity-building training program, which ran for three days.
Briefing pressmen yesterday at Abakaliki, the Executive Director of Neighbourhood Environmental Watch Foundation, Dr Okezie Kelechukwu, said the training program aimed at “Strengthening Local Advocacy Against Climate Change (SLAACC)” was stepped down for the benefit of the smallholder farmers in the hinterlands.
Okezie said the training topics covered organic farming, soil management, Organic fertilizer and pesticide production, Agro-forestry; forest conservation, biofuels production, and clean cooking initiatives.
He emphasized the need for training for the farmers, pointing out that unsustainable agricultural practices contribute to climate change.
According to him, most rural communities are vulnerable to climate change, and building resilience in the face of environmental catastrophe from climate change will result in monumental losses to vulnerable populations in the grassroots areas.
He charged the beneficiaries of the training to utilize the knowledge they acquired by stepping it down so that farmers in the community would enjoy good health and wellbeing.
Okezie noted that the overall objective of the training was to promote climate change adaptation and mitigation practices by indigenous communities in Ebonyi State.
He added that the training was organized to reduce dependence on wood for cooking through training on biogas production using organic wastes and the installation of bio-gas cooking stoves in 10 households in the community.
“Other components of the program in the community include the planting of 500 Indigenous crop trees and the provision of a unit portable hand pump bore-hole at Ohatekwe Edda community,” he added.
In his goodwill message, the State Commissioner for Environment, Mr Victor Chukwu, represented by the Hthertment, Climate Change Department, Gabriel Igwe-Ebi, thanked the organisers, noting that it came timely in the face of global change and the climate crisis facing humanity.
He charged the trainees to practice what they had learned and to ensure the sustainability of their environment through regenerative and smart agricultural practices.
He emphasized the Ebonyi state government’s commitment through the Ministry of Environment to tackling climate change noting that the state has policies on climate change and charged the farmers to stop cutting down trees rather than plant more and practice agro-forestry in their farms.
