UN Centre Recommends Use of Floodwater to End Herders-Farmers Conflict
The African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education (ARCSSTE-E) has revealed how floodwater could be used to resolve festering crises between Fulani herdsmen and farmers nationwide.
ARCSSTE-E, an affiliate of the United Nations located in Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), also explained that floodwater could be collected and reserved for the purpose of farming, fishing and ranching rather than open grazing that had been at the roots of herders-farmers crisis.
The Executive Director of the centre, Dr. Ganiyu Agbaje recommended this approach at the opening ceremony of the Online Regional Training on Flood Monitoring and Forecasting Modelling in Abuja recently.
Speaking at the workshop, Agbaje urged the federal government“totake advantage of flood water for improved farming and ranching of livestock.The useofnewtechnologywillmake it easier to predict floods and locate the people who are really affected.”
He said with satellite technology, floodwater “can be harnessed for farming, ranching and others. It can be used for farming and even fishing, if you study the way the fish move, there is always migration.
“River Niger is coming from Fouta Djallon. It moves through many countries down to Nigeria. When you know that the flood will take three months or five months for instance, you can use the water to plant rice, or you can gather it into a reservoir that can be used during the dry season.
“If you study the migration of fish, some fishes can be coming from Burkina Faso, maybe their fingerlings. You can gather them, put them in a fish pond here.
“There are so many things that can be done with flood water. If you know that certain places are lacking water, you can channel it to those farms that need those water.
“Like all these ranches that we have been talking about, that river is coming from the north, why do you need to move your animals.If you have a ranch there, when the water is coming, you will channel it and go and store it somewhere to be used.
“You can purify the water and it becomes drinking water, so why are we not using the flood water to make life easier? For Nigeria to reach her potential in agriculture and control destruction from flood, there is the need to accurately forecast and monitor floods. ”