Agric Disasters: FAO Promises To Assist Farmers Overcome Shocks

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has promised to strengthen its partnership with the Nigerian government to assist smallholder farmers build more resilience to shocks arising from agricultural disasters.
According to FAO, the disasters such as displacement due to conflict, floods, droughts and several other climate related disaster are here to stay but what is important is the country’s preparedness for the menace.
The partnership is expected to cover provision of technical support, especially to vulnerable section of smallholder farmers, and help them  build resilience of agriculture-based livelihoods to multiple shocks.
The FAO Deputy Director of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience, Shukri Ahmed, who said this during a media briefing in Abuja, on their visit to Nigeria  said, “These floods would come again, these droughts would come again, how can we prepare ourselves better to prevent the impact that they’re going to have on people.
“The partnership in the end is to make a difference in the life of those that are in the rural areas, mostly neglected smallholders farmers, as these are trying times.
“As you know, the shocks are increasing, and they are cascading. Whether it’s climate related or not, when you talk about drought, then suddenly you are, we are, talking about floods.
“So this mission in particular is to work and bring the technical knowhow of FAO to support the government. We are bringing  partners together to actually make a difference in the life of those downtrodden”.
He noted that “managing disasters has become the lifestyle of many African countries but there is need to move away from managing disasters to managing risks to build farmers resilience to manage shocks bedeviling the sector”.
Also speaking, the FAO assistant Director-General, Abebe Haile-Gabriel, said as Nigeria remains a very important partner for FAO, the aim of the visit was to come and interact with different stakeholders in a drive towards food security and achieving sustainable development goals agenda of zero hunger.
The FAO representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Fred Kafeero, on his part, said the organisation is committed to mobilising expertise to support all the areas that we have identified.