SOIL EROSION: THE PLIGHT OF KAIDA PEASANT FARMERS
Climate Crisis is no longer an issue that should be taken with levity. Having a ripple effect, it has resulted in many environmental hazards, ecological breakdown and pose as a Global threat to humanity. Sadly we all have been passive towards this topical issue despite the obvious. Climate change, an aftereffect of global warming is a serious threat to life on earth; our oceans are becoming voluminous and toxic, aquatic life are introduced to unpleasant environments and some are being displaced, warm ocean currents now encroach colder ones disrupting the ecosystem, extreme weather events now occur often — some places becomes too dry while some becomes too wet, islands are at the verge of being submerged, acid rain occurs frequently, farmlands are less productive and there is a global shortage of food.
Population explosion has led to a higher demand for food. As farmers try even harder to meet up with these ever increasing demands, they are faced with a poor harvest primarily due to a change in the climatic condition of their region. Soil erosion now poses a bigger threat to farming communities. Riverbanks burst due to excessive water flowing through them and the surrounding farmlands are grossly affected negatively as rill and gully erosion encroach and eat up farmlands and in some cases wiping out entire farmlands. The farmlands that are able to withstand the erosion are seriously leeched, leaving the land bare and devoid of nutrients which are essential for plant growth, as a result, the yields become very poor no matter how intensive the labour these poor farmers have put into it.
A team of Step-Up Green Climate Warriors went for an expedition in a rural community in Gwagwalada area council, Abuja. The settlement called Kaida is located behind The University of Abuja Specialist in Gwagwalada, though very close to Gwagwalada town, this community is far from being developed, it is like the government isn’t aware of their existence. Finding an accessible road to the interior of the community was no easy task, where our two- wheel ride couldn’t take us, we used our legs to navigate. The people of Kaida community are predominantly farmers who deal in agricultural produce such as groundnut, guinea corn, maize and rice. A community of friendly individuals, they go about with their daily routines, we were able to speak to some of the farmers about the climatic challenges they were facing there. What we heard wasn’t a pleasant story; in spite of the fact that these people feel abandoned, the consequences of climate change here is glare. Before now, the produce from the farms were used to feed households and others were sold in the market, but with the present situation, there isn’t even enough to feed households. The farmers complained that their farmlands are no longer as productive as they used to be no matter how hard they work on it. When asked if they do apply fertilizers, they said that they cannot afford it and the government program which is supposed to make it accessible to them isn’t giving a helping matter.
These farmers spoke with our team at length about other issues they faced there and how they are just surviving. Then they told us the biggest problem they have: erosion. They took us around their farmlands to show us the carnage that has been wrought upon it. There is a river that flows through the community. In the past, it has been of great advantage to the people of the community. But now, this river is increasing in volume and widening, eating up lands around it banks. The farmers decried that the previous year, erosion had wiped out an entire farmland with its produce, it was a great loss to the people of Kaida community. Looking at things by ourselves, we observed that rill erosion had graduated into gully erosion eating deep into the soil rendering the land useless for any kind of agricultural purpose. If the land at its present deplorable state is not reclaimed, it is going to keep expanding and a time would come that these farmers won’t even have a land to farm on.
The issues of global warming and climate change aren’t something we just hear on the news, it is happening right under our nose, before our very eyes. The farmers of Kaida community have no option but to adapt to the new normal, there are no factories or industries for them to work in there, farming is their main source of livelihood and it is now under threat. This isn’t just happening in Kaida alone, it is a global crisis, the difference is that some places are hard hit than others. With our ever increasing population, food shortage would become the next big challenge and climate change would exacerbate it.
We cannot put a halt to climate change; these are natural phenomenon that has been aggravated by the activities of man and cannot be handled with kid gloves.
There is no quick fix to climate change but we start by taken action to mitigate some of these challenges.
Think Globally, Act Locally. We can’t relax because it isn’t happening in our community; we are all in this together. Nature is warning!!
11 September 2020
-Imoikor Joshua
#NoPlanetB #ClimateActionNow #StepUpGreen #PlantTrees #Kaida #FridaysForFuture #Erosion #SaveFarmlands #UN #GlobalWarming #riseforclimate
