Stories by John Oba
Abuja
The Soil Science Society of Nigeria (SSSN) has called for the establishment of a National Soil Policy and Institute of Soil science that will regulate the use, conservation and management of the nation’s soil resources.
This is even as the President of the association, Prof. Victor Chude, calls for adequate protection and conservation to ensure that their functions, ecosystem services and essential role to food security and climate change regulation are not lost or diminished, saying the challenges facing Nigeria’s Soils against providing Sustainable Ecosystem Services, Climate Change Regulation and Food Security.
This was part of the resolutions of the society’s communique issued after it 40th annual conference held at the University of Calabar, Cross River, recently.
The Scientists said as a means of checking accelerated soil/land erosion and degradation, soil scientists should be actively involved in the designed and construction of all soil or land based projects to ensure that appropriate measure are adopted to avoid catastrophic erosion problems.
It said: “That there is increasing need to conserve the nation’s soils and reclaim those that have been degraded physically, chemically and biologically, through the adoption of suitable technologies tailored towards sustainable soil/land conservation and management, and climate change adaptation and mitigation.
“That government should initiate programmes to promote national awareness about soil/land use, conservation and management in collaboration with the society especially through the establishment of the Nigerian Institute of Soil Science.”
It also calls on the National Assembly to pass the Nigerian Institute of Soil Science (NISS) bill for it so as to holistically address the soil and land resources management problems of the country, requesting it to kindly expedite action on the passage of the same bill into law.
Prof. Chude in his opening remarks said the theme of the conference, “Promoting use of Nigeria’s Soil Resources for Sustainable Ecosystem Services, Climate-Smart Agricultures, Food and Nutrition Security”, is quite apt and deserves great attention considering that the natural area of productive soil is limited and under increasing pressure of intensification and competing uses for cropping, forestry, pasture/rangeland and urbanization, and to satisfy demands of the growing population for food and raw materials.
“It is a known fact that soil formation is an extremely slow process and therefore soil can be considered a non-renewable resource. Its loss through degradation is not recoverable within a human lifespan.