المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Hello once again members,

It is true and based on scientifc evidences that climate change has great deal of impact accelerating poverty-driven agriculture. Climate change has different effect and impact on different regions of the world. In northern Nigeria for example, may be only the learned know about the practical effects of climate change on local agriculture that leads to extreme poverty. But critical xray of the trend will highlight lack of practical knowledge and skill for managing associated agriculture-related extreme poverty. Two simultaneaous approaches are very vital with each depending on point of application and economic status of recipients:

a) Organized rural-urban farm produce marketing. This approach holds significant promises to reduce extreme poverty suffered by farm producers that have production resources yet suffer business shortcircuit. To those actors lacking production resources but can bridge the production-market demand they also have sustainable means of checking extreme poverty.

b) Strengthen agriculture-nutrition linkage. The link between agriculture industry and nutrition in our part of the world is very weak despite enormous potentials for reducing extreme poverty and improve nutrition particularly at the household and community levels.

The connecting element for these approaches is knowledge and skill given in the form of vocational training in AgFood and small food business development. Postharvest loss is very high especially perishable farm commodities. Non-perishable farm commodities are greatly underutilized with limited benefit. Both postharvest loss and underutilization of commodities occur on huge scale that made negative effect of climate change seemed irrelivant or even non-existent. But we know it is there. So the challenge really is to first of all overstretch obtainable benefits of ongoing harvests from field to market, to kitchen and table to be able to differentiate the real impact of climate change on local agricultural production and emerging associated extreme poverty. This is our situation.

Rabiu Auwalu Yakasai

Director

Food and Nutrition Vocational Center (FNVC)

Kano Nigeria