3 ways to use technology to tackle challenges of Climate Change

Experts have expressed the need for Nigeria to embrace the right technology to deal with the challenges posed by the Climate Change, including imminent food insecurity.

Mr. Tolu Afolayan, the Director, GIS Academy, Ibadan and Dr. John Oyedepo of the Centre for Agricultural Development and Sustainable Development (CEADESE), Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, said this in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Wednesday.

Afolayan and Oyedepo said that food insecurity in Nigeria was looming because of the damage done to the Ozone layer by carbon emission.

He further said that scientists had observed that Carbon Dioxide (CO2) content in the atmosphere was increasing as a result of human activities and burning of fossil fuel which releases CO2 into the atmosphere.

Afolayan said: “This CO2 acts like a heat-trapping blanket around the earth with the other greenhouse gases, called the greenhouse effect.

“But with the increase in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, the immediate impact is the unbearable heat and the increase in the global temperature is called global warming.

“Though this is a global issue, developing countries will be the most hit by its effects.”

He said that the implication of global warming included desert encroachment, droughts, floods, and storm.

He said that the phenomenon usually resulted in the removal of arable land as a result of desert encroachment and erosion.

“The heat causes the sand to lose its moisture and when the storm blows it forms dust cloud which will later settle over other location covering arable land.

Afolayan further said that tree cutting also causes the soil to lose its grip, adding that “with erosion, farmlands swept away in other parts of the country without desert encroachment.”

He said that the nation’s agriculture was under serious threat, pointing out that “thousands of hectares of land were being lost in Nigeria through erosion.”

He therefore expressed the need for developing countries to be proactive and deploy technology in solving the problems caused by climate change.

“If technology to solve the challenges is not embraced the country would suffer,” Afolayan said.

He further recommended the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) to analyse the environment and aggregate information relevant in tackling the menace of climate change.

Also, Oyedepo advised farmers to employ GIS to overcome the effects of the erratic weather situation.

He regretted that agriculture in Nigeria was going through turbulent times because many people had abandoned it for other jobs.

Oyedepo said that farmers were also encumbered because they could not predict when the farming season would start, when the rain would start and when it would stop.”

He said, “It is also difficult for them to know the type of crop to plant and where to plant it.”

He said that for farmers to escape the effect of global warming on agriculture and boost crop yield, they should embrace alternatives available in supplemental irrigation system and precision farming.