The Director General of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Charles Anosike has said that the agency’s partnership with universities and other institutions of learning would benefit farmers and people living in agrarian communities.
Anosike said this during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between NiMet and Taraba State University on Thursday in Abuja.
He said: “NiMet’s network of university partners is increasing. This adds to the weather and climate data available to us in addition to the data being generated by our agency-owned weather stations.
“These various data enrich the accuracy of our weather forecasts in fulfillment of our mandate. These ultimately benefit the local farmers and other users.”
Anosike added that the agency would continue to monitor the performances of the MoUs signed with universities and other higher institutions to ensure that all the parties are fulfilling their obligations.
Responding, the Vice Chancellor of Taraba State University, Prof. Sunday Bako said that the aim of partnering with NiMet is to be able to meet the needs of the immediate university community and the larger community which is agrarian.
He said: “We have departments of Geography, Agriculture, and others including Ecotourism at the Taraba State University that would benefit from the partnership and intervention.
“Our agricultural faculty runs extension programs so with the data generated from the weather station, we can raise awareness on sustainable farming and climate-smart practices.”
The overall objective of the collaboration which is renewable after four years is the promotion of activities relating to meteorology/climatology, and climate change in Nigeria.