I live in Akure, South Western part of Nigeria, we used to have a stable and predicted weather condition when I was growing up and the major source of income of people in my community is farming. We farm not only to eat but also to sell the farm produce for survival, most people in my community are farmers including my parents so will depend heavily on farming. But in recent times farming has turned out to be so difficult due to unpredictable and total change of the season that we all used to know, for instance we experience heavy rainfall when we are expecting sunlight and will experience extreme hotness instead of rainfall. Unfortunately, most people in my community do not know it is climate change that is responsible for this but rather they believe that, what is happening to us is beyond human reasoning.
Our source of livelihood is being taken away by climate change and rather for the government to provide support for smallholder farmers in
communities they are collecting our land and giving it to multinational
companies to farm and grow GMOs food that is further affecting our land and destroying our environment. Government made provision for waste disposal and waste management in urban areas only while those of us in rural areas are not provided for, most people dispose their wastes on water ways and rivers thereby blocking the water ways and when there is heavy rainfall there is flooding which not only destroy our inadequate basic health centers and community schools but also people's home. T
hough we have contributed so little in destroying the environment, but we are paying the biggest price for it and we are the most affected, our main source of livelihood is at risk and our homes and inadequate infrastructures are being destroyed.
I am leading a campaign on the care of the environment in my community and by creating awareness on climate change and what they can do to protect the environment but it is worrisome that climate change is not being seen as a problem to our government because they think given multinational companies our land to produce GMOs food will solve the issue of hunger pretending not know that GMOs will not only destroy our land but also our health.
Adekunle Akinola
Akure Community, South West Nigeria