MFB Tweet Chat With Azeez Salawu

It was an exciting, engaging and educative Wednesday on Twitter as MyFarmBase had an interesting tweet chat with Azeez Salawu, Founder, Community Action on Food Security Initiative.

Azeez Salawu, Founder, Community Action For Food Security

Here’s what you might have missed…

Q: Hello everyone… It’s time for our weekly #AgroLatestChat with “Azeez Salawu”

Welcome @AzeezSalawu Can we meet you please?

Azeez: Thank you. I am Azeez Salawu by name. The Founder @cafsng, Country Coordinator (Nigeria) @GcuCsayn & Convener Food Security Future Summit

Q: Oh interesting! Can you briefly tell us about @cafsng?

Azeez: Community Action on Food Security Initiative (CAFS) is an NGO focused on agriculture, #CC, food & nutrition security. We work with partners to reduce hunger in line with SDGs by supporting SSF by providing the tools needed to lift themselves out of poverty and create resources.

Q: Impressive! What is Food Security? #foodsecurityMFB

Azeez: Food security is defined as the availability of food and one’s access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation.

Q: There are many factors contributing to today’s food security crisis. For example, how is climate change having an impact?

Azeez: Climate change affects all dimensions of food security and nutrition.

Food availability: Changes in climatic conditions is already affecting the production of some staple crops, and future climate change threatens to exacerbate this. Higher temperatures is having an impact on yields while changes in rainfall could affect both crop quality and quantity.

Food access: Climate change could increase the prices of major crops in some regions. For the most vulnerable people, lower agricultural output means lower incomes.

Q: All dimensions? That’s sad!

What is Climate-smart Agriculture?

Azeez: Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach that helps to guide actions needed to transform and reorient agricultural systems to effectively support development and ensure food security in a changing climate.

Q: Why is it difficult to practice Climate Smart Agriculture? What is the way forward?

Azeez: It is not difficult to practice CSA.

CSA practice can be achieved by adopting a range of practices which reduce emissions. They include many proven techniques such as crop rotation, mulching, use of Nitrogen fixing legumes etc.

Q: How can we Ensure Food Security in different scenarios of climate change?

Azeez: Climate change will have far-reaching impacts on crop, livestock and fisheries production, and will change the prevalence of crop pests. Given the serious threats to food security, attention should shift to an action-oriented research agenda.

(a) changing the culture of research;

(b) deriving stakeholder-driven portfolios of options for farmers, communities and countries;

© ensuring that adaptation actions are relevant to those most vulnerable to climate change;

(d) combining adaptation and mitigation.

Q: How have you been bridging the gap between farmers, rural dwellers, youths, policy makers using research to practical approach?

Azeez: By linking ssf to inputs of high quality from @iita, @AfricaRice, icrisat, @cip and other R4D CGIAR institutes, engagement of youths through capacity building workshops to have a mindset change towards agriculture, see agric as a business keying into different agric value chain.

We also convene a yearly summit tagged Food Security Future Summit to commemorate the @unfao world food day.

The Summit is a one day high level dialogue event converging top impact leaders, key influencers, multi-stakeholders and dynamic scholars, Public and Private sectors, Non-Governmental and Civil Society Organizations working collectively on ending hunger and eradicating poverty in Nigeria.

The objective of the summit is to spark up critical discussions, inspire, engage, network, connect and also form a formidable partnership that will be based on investing in Food Security and Rural Development leading to the achievement of the SDGs in Nigeria.

Q: Wow! It’s been an amazing tweet chat with Azeez Salawu. Thank you for your time.

Azeez: Thank you very much for having me.

The #AgroLatestChat is held every Wednesday by 7pm on Twitter. Join us @myfarmbase next week for another exciting session.

myfarmbasecomMFB Tweet Chat With Azeez Salawu01.19.2019

Originally published at myfarmbase.com.ng on January 19, 2019.