Food Security: Sirika inaugurates committee on impact of Seasonal Rainfall Prediction

&NewLine;<p>Minister of Aviation&comma; Senator Hadi Sirika has inaugurated inter-ministerial committee&comma; charged with the responsibility to review from 2015-2018&comma; the impact of Seasonal Rainfall Prediction &lpar;SRP&rpar; of the Nigerian Metrological Agency &lpar;NIMET&rpar; on the nation&&num;8217&semi;s food security&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>According to a&NewLine;statement from the Ministry&comma; made available to OpenLife&comma; the minister stated that &nbsp&semi;the&NewLine;prediction which is very scientific and exact&comma; are extremely important and&NewLine;beneficial to what we do&comma; like how to plan cities and build in such a way that&NewLine;stands the weather condition&period; He&nbsp&semi; added &nbsp&semi;that the&NewLine;most important one is our ability to feed our self by knowing when to plant and&NewLine;harvest the type of crops at what particulars season&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>He said it is in&NewLine;recognition of the importance of the annual rainfall predictions that the&NewLine;Agency is being empowered and positioned for more accuracy&period; &&num;8220&semi;We are&NewLine;acquiring capability through NIMET to cascade and drop it down within meters&NewLine;and inches of accuracy&comma; noting that in 2017 some farmers in Sokoto came to&NewLine;testify that from the prediction and the advice they have gotten that they were&NewLine;able to make good harvest for the season and unfortunately other who didn&&num;8217&semi;t&NewLine;follow the advice had losses&&num;8221&semi;&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The committee’s Terms of Reference include&colon;    Examining the level of awareness of stakeholders &lpar;especially farmers&rpar; of the SRP&semi;    Compare and contrast the agricultural production and SRP within the period of 2015-2018&semi;    Examining the consumption vis a vis production of agricultural products on the nation&&num;8217&semi;s economy within the period&period; Relating issues on SRP and food security&semi;    Other assignments given by the Minister on the subject matter&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>He urged the committee members to take the job very seriously as national assignment and do it with all the necessary due diligence as well as finish on time&comma; considering its likely effect on the nation’s food sufficiency capacities&period; Chairman of the committee and Director Planning Research and Statistics Mohammed Shehu pledged that the members will work assiduously and deliver as expected&period; He thanked the minister for the opportunity to serve for the committee whose assignment&comma; according to him touches the life of the average Nigerian&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;