SPECIAL REPORT: 3000 hectares ruined, ‘food basket’ threatened; How floods ravaged Benue, raising concerns over impact of climate change

In Benue, a state in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, persistent rains and heavy floods are ravaging farmlands, thereby affecting food production and forcing farmers to migrate. Ripples Nigeria’s Kelechukwu Iruoma visited Guma and Makurdi on the trail of destruction inflicted on the state largely known as Nigeria’s food basket.

Titus Agbaape, 61, sits under an orange tree with two of his wives as he watches his sick six-year-old daughter being pierced with a syringe by a quack. He has travelled about 65 km on foot from his village in Tomoye Izoru to Gbajimba, headquarters of Guma local government area in Benue, a state in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region.

His attention was drawn when he heard Ripples Nigeria discussing with a farmer about the flood that ravaged farmlands in Benue. “My farmlands were destroyed by flood, especially rice,” he interrupted.

Desolate… Ravaged five-hectare farmlands of Titus Agbaape

“I feel very much embarrassed because it is through that farm I train my children. I am married with four wives and 16 children. So I am much worried because I have no any other business doing than farming,” Agbaape added.

Three months ago, Benue state was a target of heavy rainfall that submerged farmlands in 21 out of the 23 local government areas of the state and displaced more than 110,000 people, according to a report credited to Benue State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA). The state governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom said the devastation caused by the flood raised the threat for an impending food scarcity in the country.

However, checks with SEMA showed from available statistics that about 50,312 persons were displaced and 1,703 houses destroyed.

Agriculture is the mainstay of Benue’s economy, engaging more than 70% of the state farming population. The state is acclaimed the food basket of the nation because of its high productivity in food, growing large quantities of rice, yams, groundnuts, sesame, cassava, shea nuts, soya beans and millet, amongst others.

Benue experiences two distinct seasons, the wet season and the dry season. The rainy season lasts from April to October with annual rainfall in the range of 100-200mm. The dry season begins in November and ends in March. Temperatures fluctuate between 21 – 37 degrees Celsius in the year.

‘If I fold my hands, my people will die’

“There will be hunger this year because of shortage and scarcity of food as a result of the rain,” Agbaape said. In previous days, we had no much rain. But this year, the rice had been planted early but when you go to the [farm] lands, the water had washed away the rice, leaving the farm empty,” he said on a bike while taking Ripples Nigeria to his ravaged rice farmlands in Tomoye Izoru from Gbajimba.

His five-hectare farmland was ravaged by flood. “If I had another business doing, I would have not cared very much. But as a result of my inability to find any other means of feeding my children, I find it difficult,” he said.

For Thomas Olah, a farmer in Guma, he hoped to harvest 40 bags of rice from his two hectares destroyed by flood, and each sold for N17, 000 if the flood had not washed away the crops.

Dejected…To survive, Thomas Olah is now working as a mechanic

“After the rice came up, the water washed the rice away. The water remained until the rice got rotten. The place is very plain. There is no single rice in the hectares.”

Olah said he has five children and all of them have been unable to go back to school since the incident occurred and further said, “I am doing a mechanic work because I cannot fold my hands. If I fold my hands, my people will die.”

Godwin Gbawuan, whose two hectares were destroyed said last year same thing happened. Not two but five hectares were affected due to the heavy rain. Gbawuan, who plants rice recounted how “stressful” it is to plant rice using manual labour without tractors.

“I am a civil servant but due to this salary problem, it is farm that I benefit from and the farm is being affected too. It is very difficult to cope with the situation of children in school, meeting their needs and others. Some are taking one square meal a day. I have 10 children with one wife,” Gbawuan, a farmer in Guma lamented.

Crops will not yield much this year

“The rain struck very early this year and this year, crops will not yield much result,” said Gbawuan.

In its 2017 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction (SRP), Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) said this year, the country is likely to experience a wetter start and a drier end of the season. NIMET predicted rainfall amount to be below normal in Benue state.

According to the report, “Food production is expected to be less than normal due to shorter growing season length over large parts of the country. This may be compensated by projected up to 10% additional rains over large parts of the savannas, Nigeria’s food basket for cereals.”

Flooding has become a major hazard to farmers in Nigeria due to climate change and it has become regular, threatening food production. In 2012, an unusual flood displaced 1.3 million Nigerians and 431 people died in what the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) referred to as the worst flooding in over 40 years, with 30 of the country’s 36 states affected, causing damage estimated by the government at N2.6 trillion.

In 2015, flood in Cross River, a state in Southern Nigeria displaced more than 1,220 families, and destroyed 4,501 farms in some coastline communities in the state.

The world population is growing at a faster rate. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimated that the world population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050 and to feed that number of people, global food production will need to grow by 70%. For Africa, which is projected to be home to about 2 billion people by then, farm productivity must accelerate at a faster rate than the global average to avoid mass hunger.

Goal number one and two of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to end poverty and hunger. There will be no peace without tackling food security and eliminate hunger, and there will be no food without tackling climate change, according to FAO.

Agony of a farmer…. Agbaape in his homestead in Tomoye

If action is not taken by the Nigerian government, there could be “10 to 25 per cent decline in agricultural productivity by 2080”, according to a study by Centre for Global Development.

Officials divert relief materials for farmers

Farmers affected by the floods at Guma told Ripples Nigeria that some government officials are diverting relief materials given to them by the federal government. But the State Ministry of Agriculture and Benue state All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) president said every relief materials for farmers affected to start afresh was channelled through the State Emergency Maintenance Agency (SEMA).

A rice farmer in Guma, Emmanuel Ogbode, said when government brings materials to Guma, they do not benefit from it. “When something comes now, before you know it, it is already shared. Even those who did not plant one seed of rice will go and occupy everything.”

In 2014, when the flood occurred, AFAN said the association had a comprehensive record of the flood that took place at that time. “Those who forwarded their names here to us, we forwarded them to SEMA. SEMA deals with farmers directly. If there is any turn around, we do not know. We are very transparent in dealing with them,” Kuhe Aondona, AFAN president told Ripples Nigeria.

Aondona stated that rural farmers are not benefitting. Only town farmers. “We do not encourage that. We take it up pro actively so that those things that were diverted to be brought back. If SEMA wants to be transparent, they are supposed to involve us.”

Ogbode said when the flood happened, government sent forms to be given to affected farmers to fill, stating their damages, but before they knew, some people collected the forms, sent them back and collected materials meant for them. That is one of the challenges they are having, according to him.

“The real farmers are inside the bush. Some people will stay in Makurdi and claim to be farmers. When something is brought from Abuja, they will put the names of their friends and those that were affected will not get anything,” Ogbode whose one out of two hectares was destroyed lamented.

SEMA refuses to speak

When Ripples Nigeria visited the offices of the federal and state Ministry of Agriculture in Makurdi to find out what they are doing to tackle climate change and support farmers who were affected by the flood, they all directed Ripples Nigeria to SEMA, adding that every agricultural intervention that has to do with flooding was channelled through SEMA to execute.