
The Earth supports our livelihoods, health, jobs, happiness, survival, and various life endeavors. Investing in our planet is crucial for preserving its natural resources and ensuring a sustainable future for generations to come. However, human activities such as burning fossil fuels, releasing chemicals into the atmosphere, reducing the amount of forest cover, and the rapid expansion of farming, development, urbanization, and industrial activities are releasing carbon dioxide and methane gases into the atmosphere.
Effects such as extreme hot and cold temperatures, irregular rainfalls, flooding, and drought among others are apparent in recent times. These effects call for a change of approach and eco-friendly activities to restore our earth. All human action should be geared towards achieving the right balance between meeting our needs (environmental, social and economic) and leaving a healthy planet earth for future generations of humanity. To achieve this, natural processes, green technologies and innovative approaches that can restore and protect the earth’s ecosystems should be adopted.
Investing in renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and help combat climate change. Climate-smart agricultural methods and technologies are now being adopted world over. One of the Agricultural techniques being mentioned frequently in recent conversations to ensure a healthy planet is regenerative agriculture. It is a term that describes farming and grazing practices that not only reverses climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter but also restore degraded soil biodiversity. These farming practices include permaculture, aquaculture, agroecology, and agroforestry among others. The result is a reduction in the amount of carbon emission and an improved water cycle. This technique creates drought-resistant soil, improves yields, nurtures biodiversity, restores grasslands, improves nutrition and revitalizes local economies.
Precision agriculture offers an approach to farm management that applies specialized equipment, software and information technology services to guarantee that crops and soil receive what they need for perfect health and productivity. This approach accesses data about conditions of the soil, crop, ambient air, local weather predictions and other necessary information. The farmer is supported with guidance on crop rotation, best planting and harvesting times as well as best soil management techniques. Mobile apps, smart sensors, drones and cloud computing captures data useful for providing information on fields that need treatment, the right amount of water, fertilizers and pesticides to apply thereby avoiding waste, preventing run-off, reducing cost and controlling the impact of the farm on the environment.
Ikore International Development works to empower farmers especially the rural poor with information about climate-smart farming techniques, local weather predictions, best farm management practices and other relevant information through our easily accessible E-extension Program. We also provide access to farm equipment and Labor-Saving Devices which increase the productivity of farmers and outputs of their farms. Our goal at Ikore is to ensure that farmers have optimum yields with reduced labour while protecting the earth through climate smart agricultural technologies even at the grassroots.
Together we can make the planet healthy and safe by planting a tree, properly managing waste, applying green technologies like solar power, vehicles that do not emit gases, self-sufficient buildings and other innovative methods to our everyday lives while the government and other major stakeholders ensure that these climate-smart interventions are affordable and easily accessible to the masses. Do something today to restore our Earth!