Sharon: Desertification in Nigeria

Summary of:

“A powerful article by Lanre Oyetade on the human causes and effects of desertification, featured in The Tribun." 

Desertification in Nigeria

Desertification is the process of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub—humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations (drought) and human activities (overexploitation of drylands). Until the recent years, the world's great deserts were formed by natural processes interacting over long intervals of time. During most of these times, deserts have grown and shrunk independent of human activities which is totally different from the way deserts are formed now.

The northern part of Nigeria is currently experiencing drastic desert encroachment, 10 northern states of the country lose 600 meters of land each year as the desert advances southwards while the whole country loses about 350,000 hectares of arable land to desertification. As far as it dates back, desertification has no good effect on the environment; it encroaches and takes up arable land.

“There isn’t enough rain and we have to dig deeper and deeper to find water,” these are words of a farmer in the northern part of Nigeria which in the late 1990s could yield about 40 bags of sorghum and 20 of groundnuts each year, but his bountiful yield has gone as desertification takes over the lands. Even though he now works twice as hard as before, his yield is barely half of what he used to have in the past.

·      What could be the cause of such calamity, how can a land that could yield so many crops be void of nutrient and water that even half of its former yield cannot be reached with so much work?

This is a typical example of a desert, although I couldn’t get the exact location, it is in one of the northern countries of Nigeria, which used to be an arable land but a desert now.

Bare rocks and a pill of sand: Explains the work of wind on bare land, it sweeps across the soil, carrying with it light particles and depositing them in a different location, leaving the land bare and extremely dry for use.

Causes of Desertification

·       Overgrazing

·       Farming on average land

·       Destruction of plants in dry region

·       Incorrect irrigation in arid regions

Effects of desertification

·       Soil becomes less usable

·       Vegetation becomes lacked or damaged

·       Causes famine

·       Food loss

·       People near are affected

Below is a picture of an abandoned village, its habitants had to leave in search of greener pastures and thus the empty village.

Questions to consider:

---    How can the problem of desertification be curbed?

  -What possible role can the government play in extinction of desertification?

  - Is it possible for desertification to be totally wiped out?