Climate-induced agricultural disasters have been distinguished as foremost amongst the threats to agricultural productivity and food security in Africa (FAO, 2017). Generally, human security has been severely decimated by climate alterations in many African countries. Many of these countries are still in the throes of extreme poverty, severe malnutrition and unrelenting spread of bubonic plagues and viral infections (Chaudry, 2014). Perhaps, climate alterations constitutes major reason for the failure of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa by the end of 2015 and it already portend a very serious hindrances to actualization of the first three sustainable development goals namely; no poverty; zero hunger and human wellbeing. Most African communities are rural and agrarian; hence, any impact on agricultural productivity and food availability NEPAD, 2013) affects human wellbeing.

For an African country, Nigerian population is rather large that increasing climatic alterations and concomitant impacts on the people may generate grievous issues of regional if not global dimension. Already, there are overwhelming indications of negative effects of erratic weather patterns on agriculture in many parts of Nigeria (Theodore, 2006). Several available evidences (Maxwell et al., 2012) revealed that associated with consistent threats to agriculture, are wide spread hunger, poverty, diseases which are the inroads for insurgencies, restiveness, armed banditry and other undesirable deportments that characterized many parts of the country today. Many rural homes are profoundly afflicted by the scourge of poverty, hunger and malnourishments (Cleaver et al., 2009). Erratic rainfall, extensive drought and rampant crop diseases have exacerbated inadequacy of food stuff for man and feed stock for animals. The situation of inadequate forage, pasture and water across the country seem to be the same; incidentally, this determines herd condition and livelihood security of millions of pastoralists. The direct outcome is frequent conflicts on common resources between herders and arable farmers.

Unemployment rate in Nigeria increased from 5.3 per cent in 2006 to 23.10 per cent by the end of September 2018 (NBS, 2019). Furthermore, Nigeria retrogressed in 2019 to become one of the 10 poorest countries in the world; with over 94 million people below poverty line, whereas she was among the richest 50 in the early-1970s (WPR, 2019). Nigeria‟s consistent over dependence on oil, as currently argued by many could be responsible for poor economy, but this certainly could not be the reason for food insecurity. For many years Nigeria has recourse to massive importation of food items until it became one country unable to feed itself (BBC News, 2019). It is glaring that the oil economy is completely unreliable and it is time that the primacy of agriculture as the economic flagship is restored. The Nigerian foreign exchange earnings from yearly sales of crude oil (calculating on 730 million barrels at $65 per barrel) are far less than the potential earnings of robust agricultural system with capability of $50 billion per year (Sayre et al., 2015). Netherlands is an example of the possibility of transformed economy through agriculture. The country switched to agriculture after the  failure of the oil sector. The foreign earning of Netherlands with land size of 41543 km2 (about the combined land areas of Oyo and Ogun States) from agriculture is estimated at $ 8 billion per annum.

With the current economic growth and recovery plan (EGRP) of the present administration in Nigeria, Agriculture must be given full backing for it to revamp the economy, while also stamping out poverty and hunger in the land. It must be noted that however that there is more to the success of the EGRP than political economy analysis (PEA). There is urgent need to distil out and address the key issues of an “Environmental Economy Analysis” (EAA) of agricultural diversification programme. Strategies to reduce to the impacts of climate change stress on agriculture and food security in Nigeria to “as low as practically possible” level should occupy the central position in the Agricultural diversification programme. 

Unequivocally, Small and medium scale farmers in Nigeria are at the receiving end of the climate change challenge. Many of the farmers are peasants operating on extensive rain-fed agriculture and as such do not have control over most factors of production. They are also always at the mercy of local weather conditions; which oftentimes are unpredictable and unfavourable. For instance in many parts of South-western Nigeria where there are no irrigation facilities, farmers do not know when it is safe to commence planting, when the rains could be excessive and when a dry spell could be disastrous. Similarly, there are no decision supports to determine when outbreak of weather related pests and diseases could unleash economic injury to agricultural enterprises

The unrestrained exposure of Nigerian agriculture to extremes of weather conditions will continue to constrain farmers‟ productive capacities and livelihoods; meanwhile, the impacts of climate change may not only threaten food but human and animal security. Amongst the many problems that constrain development of African agriculture, climate alteration has been identified to be significant and unless new paths are charted, food production and human security in Africa will be in jeopardy. With her present population, Nigeria has become the most vulnerable countries of Africa to insecurities arising from food shortages and the consequences of global environmental change.

The threat posed by climate-change would undermine any effort at transforming Nigerian Agriculture. It is therefore thought that through development of early warning and effective dissemination of high quality climate information, Nigerian agriculture can survive vagaries of stressors confronting it. If farmers are encouraged to organize themselves into climate information user groups in climate-smart villages where necessary trainings are conducted and reliable and quality climate information are disseminated in near real-time, it is possible to overcome the monstrous challenge of climate-change and checkmate the associated ills of weather related agricultural disasters such as drought, flood, diseases, that comes with it. Only then can Nigeria be said to have devised a smart way around her multifaceted climate-related issues in agriculture.

The project will expand knowledge on climate change impact on farmers‟ livelihoods and productivity but also look at the best way to reduce these by generating and widely disseminating reliable and high quality climate information to the farmers. The project will train farmers on how to make effective use of the climate information available to them. This will be achieved through establishment of climate-smart villages where farmers are frequently instructed on how to access and interpret climate information and what to do with them. The project will reveal existing local and regional policies for climate change mitigation with emphasis on positive and negative impacts on the Farmers and the emerging innovations for livelihood adaptation as related to climate change. The project will provide scientific evidence for policy decision in ameliorating socio-political situation, increase unhindered access to climate information, suggest easily adoptable solutions to mitigate climate change impact, support livelihoods development and adaptations and a crucial task to support a transition to more sustainable agrarian societies. The project will strive to help farmers to improve on  their means of livelihood by making most use of the climate information services provided to increase productivity, reduce loss and reduce poverty.