How farmers can minimise losses from flooding

Flood as a natural disaster is one of the serious challenges facing agriculture in Nigeria, resulting in reduced productivity, crop failure and sometimes even crop death, thereby consequently impacting negatively on the lives of farmers. According to statistics by the National Emergency Management Agency, flood had displaced 100,000 people, injured 500 and destroyed thousands of […]

Flood as a natural disaster is one of the serious challenges facing agriculture in Nigeria, resulting in reduced productivity, crop failure and sometimes even crop death, thereby consequently impacting negatively on the lives of farmers.

According to statistics by the National Emergency Management Agency, flood had displaced 100,000 people, injured 500 and destroyed thousands of hectares of farmlands in 2022, a situation that threatened food supply in the country.

Speaking at a one-way high level advocacy workshop on ramping up access to climate information services for national development and food security in Nigeria organised by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), the Director-General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMeT), Prof. Mansur Matazu, said the Nigerian economy suffered $4.6bn in losses as a result of flooding in 2022.

The Federal Government has in April this year (2024) warned that 148 local government areas across 31 states are at risk of flooding.

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Speaking at the unveiling of the 2024 Annual Flood Outlook (AFO) in Abuja on Monday April 15, 2024, the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Prof. Joseph Utsev, identified the states likely to experience the disaster as follows: Adamawa, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi and Kogi.

Others in the list are: Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, and Yobe.

The minister further stated that the high flood risk areas would experience the phenomenon between April and November in 2024; with high potential impacts on agriculture and other critical sectors.

As the rainy season is fast approaching, there is a need for people and the government to put in place mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of flooding across the country to safeguard lives and property.

A Professor of Soil Science at the Department of Soil Science in Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, Prof. Ambrose Amba, cautioned farmers to avoid flood-prone areas for their farming activities, saying the practice can lead to total crop failure and severe economic loss.

Speaking to Daily Trust over the weekend, Prof. Amba said, “Flood is a phenomenon that takes place when water overflows its bank into adjacent dry land. When there’s this phenomenon whereby water from rainfall or from what we call melting ice overflows its bank or finds way into dryland, it causes flooding. Most at times, once the carrying capacity of the channel in which water normally flows is high then the water overflows into an area where it may not be wanted, mostly in settlements or in farms, resulting in huge losses of lives and property.”

Prof Amba further explained that there are human induced factors that accelerate flooding aside from the natural causes.

“Generally, flooding is of two types. There’s the natural one, and then the artificial one. The natural flood is usually occasioned by factors such as heavy downpour, for example. You know when rainfall exceeds the normal flow, of course, you expect flooding. There are also other activities by man which obviously accelerate flooding; activities such as blocking of drainage canals, building of houses on lowland areas and blocking other water pathways by debris or refuse, for instance.”

On how farmers can mitigate against flood, the soil expert said, “The issue of flooding is a serious issue. It didn’t start today; it’s an accumulation of long term effects ranging from deforestation, our nature of tillage practices, destruction of the environment, urbanisation, and the characteristics of our architectural buildings, some of which are not really in tune with the African concept. For example when you have a house and then you want to give it a very good outlook, you cement every place, put interlocks and do all sorts of soil cover in order to beautify it. What happens is this: When there’s rainfall, there’s going to be little infiltration of water into the soil. You’ll have more of run off than infiltration.

“So you can now imagine how many houses have such kind of decorations. At the end of the day, the amount of water that will be collected after a particular rainfall will be huge and it must have its way out. It will go downstream and overflow the capacity of the canals.

“There are so many factors in play, but by and large, there is a need for action to arrest flood. Farmers, for example, should be very careful on where to farm. They should avoid lowlands and other flood-prone areas. Concerted efforts must be made to check deforestation. Of course most of our energy sources are from firewood but then there must be a deliberate approach by government to be able to reduce the amount of deforestation of the existing forest so that we can really reduce the impact of flooding.”

Other measures to put in place to mitigate the adverse effect of climate change include adoption of good tillage practices which are less destructive to the soil and friendly to the environment, good drainage system, adopting good conservation methods through practices such as plowing, terracing, use of crops that are resilient to flood and cover cropping to improve soil structure and water infiltration.