Climate Change Adaptation

Climate change poses new challenges for Nigerian farmers as the earth gets hotter and hotter, increasing soil evaporation, change in seasons and drought. In Kano state Nigeria from 2020 we are witnessing drop in rainfall, delay in wet season to start in Kano and Jigawa state. States like Benue before 2019 have the highest rain in August but from 2020 Benue witness drought in August. In some parts of Nasarawa state they witness delayed wet seasons in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. In summary the constant change in climate affects farming activities in Nigeria as crops like cowpea and pigeon pea production drop, increased mortality for bird farmers due to heat and increased temperature, farmers struggle to identify better planting seasons as prepared weather data is not accessible by farmers

One health/Green Club: Youth to Children Campaign on Climate change and Environment health: COFARMS train youths in the university, provide them with materials, tree plants, logistic support and stipend to reach out to children in the primary and high schools, teach them about climate change and some of the adoption measures that can be put in place, teach the children on how to plant trees and provide every child with one tree to plant. COFARMS train university students and encourage the establishment of green clubs in schools to serve as a climate change adoption informative and learning platform. The one health project encourages man to be one with his environment.

Five million trees planting Project across ten northern states in Nigeria: The project kick off in 2021 with the aim to plant 5 million economic trees (Coffee, Cocoa, Avocado, Moringa and Tick) in ten northern states (Benue, Nasarawa, Niger, Kwara, Kogi, Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Gombe, Bauchi) and will be manage by 5000 farmers across the participating states. The project aims to create additional streams of revenue for participating farmers, increase environmental health and reduce heat in selected areas.

Creation of additional water source for wet season farming in the Northern Nigeria: 2021 was a hard year for some group of co-farmers in Gaya LGA in Kano state and some Cofarms clusters in Jigawa state as they lose most of their crops due to drought as the rain stop weeks before the predicted time. As part of our effort to help the farmers, we map out areas where the farmers can get additional water within their farmland with the plan of drilling tube wells and providing them with a solar pump to have supportive water supply in their farm.

Organizing training for rural farmers on Climate change: COFARMS organized training in different states of Nigeria to help the farm understand climate change and how it impacts on their farming activities, train them on some adaptation measure and how to work around climate change. We also introduce climate change more resilient crops, gather data through COFARMS lead farmers of previous years rainfall to help plan a better planting date from the coming season.