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The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) and the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide weather information to farmers.
The MoU was signed by the Executive Director of BATNF, Oluwaseyi Ashade and the new Director General of NiMet, Sani Marshi in Lagos over the weekend.
Speaking at the ceremony, Ashade the objective of the partnership was for NIMET to provide weather information, including the likely period of dry spell and locations of likely flash flood occurrences to farmers who were grossly dependent on rainfed agriculture.
She said :”BATNF also wants to train implementing partner organisations on critical threshold of weather and climate monitoring and to provide other technical support for the attainment of the full economic potential for the smallholder farmers.
“BATNF will provide weather information dissemination platforms through different sessions of agronomics and other household economic strengthening training across the number of states where BATNF’s activities are carried out.
” The training include pre-season and in-season among other training for lead farmers and other relevant users,” Ashade said
Also speaking, the outgoing Director General of NIMET, Dr Anthony Anuforom, explained that the services of the agency cut across every sector of the economy, from agriculture to maritime, aviation, oil and gas, tourism and others.
Anuforom said he was working with the new director general towards ensuring a smooth transition at the agency hence his presence at the ceremony.
On his part, Marshi said NiMet was delighted with its relationship with British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation.
He said :”We will give you the necessary support. We are in a transition.
“We will have expectation that our partners will collect information at the lower level which we will work with, like Katsina State did for us to make necessary adjustment for more effective weather prediction.”
NAN reports that the BATNF is an independent charitable organisation incorporated in Nigeria on Nov.13, 2002 as a Company Limited.
BATNF provides technical assistance to build productive capacity of smallholder farmers thereby transiting them from subsistence to commercial agriculture.
It focuses on rice, cassava, maize, vegetables, oil palm, poultry and aquaculture value chains in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
