Niger Resists In The Crosshairs Of Sanctions And Climate Catastrophe

• by: Pavan Kulkarni

12-05-2024 ~ Aboubakar Alassane of the West Africa Peoples Organization (WAPO) explains how Nigeriens are enduring the consequences of unprecedented floods that have devastated their economy already crippled by sanctions.

In the aftermath of the devastation left behind in the wake of unprecedented floods, Nigeriens are rebuilding their livelihoods and economy with the help of several relief measures instituted by the government to drastically cut prices of essential commodities and services.

The Sahel-wide flooding between June and October of 2024 has exacted a particularly high toll on the people of Niger, destroying crops, cattle, houses, and infrastructure in one of the world’s poorest countries. The country’s economy had already been strangled by seven-month-long sanctions.

By late September, at least 339 were killed, many more injured, and 1.1 million people displaced by the floods caused by unprecedented rain. The storms affected almost 190,000 hectares of cultivated agricultural land in a country with one of the highest child malnutrition rates.

Maradi region, the agricultural hub of south-central Niger, was the worst affected, with “the equivalent of an entire month’s worth of rain falling in a day,” said Aboubakar Alassane, a member of the coordination council of West Africa Peoples Organization (WAPO).

Masses of livestock, one of the most important sources of foreign exchange in Niger, were washed away in the Agadez region in the Sahara desert in the central north of the country. This destroyed the sole livelihood of nomadic communities. Read more

The Carbon Soil Opportunity: Organic Farming Helps Counter Climate Change

• by: Caroline Cox

12-03-2024 ~ Switching to organic products is an easy way to eat healthier and support the environment.

Climate change is no longer an abstraction. I can literally see it at my front door. My figs ripened in October 2024, which has never happened before as it was never warm enough during that month. In my home state of Oregon, wildfires set new records this year, with almost 2 million acres burned.

Meanwhile, in my hometown, Eugene, we had the longest stretch of consecutive days when temperatures reached at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. It’s hard for me to think about the world that I will leave to my grandchildren. So I look for what I can do, and believe it or not, there’s hope right at the grocery store; buying organic can contribute to combating climate change. Organic farmers actually store carbon in the soil, meaning there’s less in the air to change our climate.

A series of long-term studies mentioned below demonstrate that organic farming increases soil carbon. In other words, organic farming is carbon farming. Federal law defines organic farming as a farming method, so we know what we’re buying. Organic farmers use cover crops, mulches, and crop rotations to build healthy soil. They utilize various techniques to prevent pest problems, using only certain pesticides, which have been thoroughly reviewed as a last resort. You can support carbon farming by buying organic.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2023 Synthesis Report states that carbon sequestration in agriculture has one of the highest potentials for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon sequestration, or carbon farming, uses farming techniques to increase soil carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere (For more details about carbon farming and farmers who are using the method, see “How Land Use Is a Tool for Solving Climate Change” and “Carbon Farming: A Sustainable Agriculture Technique That Keeps Soil Healthy and Combats Climate Change.”)

Referring to the IPCC recommendations, the World Economic Forum’s November 2024 article states, “[E]nhancing soil carbon sequestration through regenerative agriculture could sequester up to 23 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2050, a substantial portion of the mitigation required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.” Read more