Director Hails, Nigeria’s Agro-Forestry Initiative

The Forestry Department of the Ministry of Environment has said Nigeria is a key player in the agro-forestry initiative of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the Acting Director of the department, Alhaji Salisu Dahiru has said.

Dahiru told newsmen in Abuja recently that the ministry would fully implement all FAO’s policies, especially as they were aimed at addressing the nation’s food security.

The Tide reports that agro-forestry is an integrated approach of combining trees with crop or livestock production to address the challenges of poverty, hunger and environmental degradation.

Nigeria is key player as far as the programmes and projects of FAO are concerned.

“You know FAO is an agency of United Nations and Nigeria is a member of UN.

FAO has a big presence in Nigeria and a lot of the programmes that were done in this department are technical and we receive financial support from FAO.’’

Dahiru said that the department would continue to participate through the contribution of inputs for the adoption of agro-forestry as a policy.

‘’FAO relies on countries making inputs and even where they propose certain policy, they will bring it to every stakeholder to make input, to analyse it and offer opinions and we are part and parcel of that policy.