By Sumaila Ogbaje
Abuja – The Director-General, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Prof. Sani Mashi, has called for collaboration between Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) and NiMet on weather data sharing to help equip farmers with information.
A statement by Mrs Tessy Ushie, Assistant General Manager, NiMet’s Public Relations Unit, disclosed this on Friday in Abuja.
Mashi made the call when the Acting Executive Secretary of ARCN, Prof. Ambrose Voh (Jr) and his team visited him in Abuja.
He said there was need for the strengthening of collaborations with NGOs, Private and Corporate Organisations for local farmers to be adequately equipped with information for the 2017 farming season.
NiMet boss expressed the willingness of the agency to strengthen synergy with ARCN in the areas of manpower development, provision of Seasonal Rainfall Prediction information and production of Agro-meteorological.
Other areas, according to him, include drought monitoring information and making available the data harnessed from the Agency’s 54 synoptic stations.
He also disclosed that copies of the SRP documents are being circulated to various end users across the country for proper planning in all weather-related sectors.
Earlier, Prof. Voh said that their visit was to explore avenues for further cooperation with NiMet to enhance ARCN service delivery especially in areas of data sharing, research and capacity building.
He stressed the need for the use of technology generation and dissemination platforms to reach out to local farmers to guarantee improved productivity.