CIKOD fighting climate change through Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration of Trees

The Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) has been campaigning against climate change and its negative impact on livelihoods and agriculture through the Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) to grow trees.

Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration of trees is the practice adopted by farmers to groom and nurture younger trees growing on their fields rather than destroying them for the purpose of farming.

It emerged that some farmers destroyed trees on their fields during land preparation which contributed significantly to the adverse climate change variability such as irregular rainfall pattern and rise in temperature, which had negative impact on society.

In an interview with Mr Danniel Banuoku, the Deputy Director for CIKOD North, he noted that CIKOD had trained about 5000 farmers in the Lawra Municipal and Nandom District to adopt agro-ecological agriculture including FMRN as part of the campaign.

He said his organisation had also supported farmers in some communities in Lawra Municipal and Nandom District including: Pavuu, Ermong, Goziiri and Koo communities among others to reclaim about 100 acres of degraded land through the FMNR as part of the climate mitigation strategies.

“There are also issues to deal with mitigation element, so FMNR is what is helping the communities to regenerate degraded landscapes by ensuring owning and taking care of trees and improving community eco systems.

So we are looking at this mitigation measures in two approaches; first we have dedicated some degraded landscapes and we are working to regenerate those landscapes”, he explained.

Mr Banuoku stated that predictitons of about three to five per cent rise in temperature, particularly in the Sub-Sahara Africa between 2020 and 2050 posed live threat to the world and warned that if measures were not put in place to avert the trend the rise could be higher.

The impact of climate change, he said, could lead to decline in agriculture production resulting in food insecurity, rising temperature leading and region specific impacts such as drier land and water bodies in Sub-Sahara Africa and rising sea levels in parts of the Western World as well as disease epidemic among others.

Mr Banuoku therefore noted that they were encouraging farmer-to-farmer training on Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration of tress to inculcate into them, the habit of tree growing to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change.

He observed that another worrying situation was the prediction of an expansion of the desert of about three kilometres annually to the coast, a situation he noted, could be detrimental in the near future.

Mr Banuoku explained that Burkina Faso, for instance, was already faced with the effects of climate change – high temperature of about 40 degrees, drier lands and less rainfall among others.

This he said, had prompted farmers to adopt climate resilient strategies such as the “half moon”, “stone lines with strips of grasses” and “zai” methods of farming to maximise both the meagre rains they experienced and soil fertility to increase food production.

He added that the government of Burkina Faso had prioritised irrigation farming through the construction of dams to counter the limited rainfall of three months maximum, which the country currently experienced.

Mr Banuoku therefore indicated that there was the need for the government, the private sector and development partners to join force to revert the glaring threat of climate change on the environment and the lives of the people.

The CIKOD Deputy Director added that his organisation had been engaging communities to develop community disaster plans to help counter climate change related disasters through which eight communities in the Lawra Mucipal and Nandom Districts of the Upper West Region had been supported to develop those pans.