Agricultural experts at the Foundation for Sustainable Smallholder Solutions (FSSS) have called on governments at all levels to enforce existing laws against indiscriminate tree felling, while urging development partners and private sector actors to strengthen support for regenerative agriculture as part of urgent efforts to protect the environment and secure the future of coming generations.
The call was made during a World Earth Day webinar hosted by FSSS, themed “Entrenching Resilience through Regenerative Agriculture: A Case Study of the ESTRRA Project.” The webinar brought together experts and development practitioners to discuss practical pathways to address climate change, deforestation, degraded soils, and declining agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers in Nigeria.
Dr Reuben Solomon, Senior Agronomist at FSSS, emphasised the urgent need to restore degraded land and enforce environmental regulations.
“Regenerative agriculture is a holistic land management technique that helps heal the soil, enhance biodiversity, and sequester carbon to combat climate change,” he said.
He noted that regenerative agriculture improves soil fertility, increases biodiversity, enhances water retention, and strengthens resilience against climate shocks, while warning that indiscriminate tree felling and unsustainable farming practices are accelerating land degradation and desertification in Northern Nigeria. He urged the government to implement and enforce laws against tree felling while investing in policies that encourage land restoration and sustainable agriculture.
The webinar also featured Timothy Azakere, Technical Lead at FSSS, and Philip Ortese, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Manager at FSSS.
Azakere explained how the ESTRRA Project is driving the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices among smallholder farmers.
“Many people don’t know that the soil is a living thing. So, all the processes that are employed to keep the soil alive while producing food are the things we are doing,” he said.
He explained that the project promotes practical interventions such as fruit forests, mixed farming systems, cover cropping, composting and organic manure use, reduced tillage, mulching, crop rotation, and water retention structures such as earth bunds.
“The same thing is happening to our soils. The soil in the North is mostly, if not completely dead, or almost dead. That is why it is very urgent and very important for us to do what we are doing to bring life back into the soil,” he added.
Azakere identified key barriers to the adoption of regenerative agriculture among farmers, including low awareness, resistance to change, labour intensity, limited access to finance and inputs, and delayed returns on investment. To address these challenges, FSSS is leveraging its Farmers’ Hub model as a community-based service delivery and learning platform where farmers can access training, demonstration plots, quality inputs, aggregation services, and extension support.
He added that the project is intentionally engaging women and youth as critical drivers of adoption by creating opportunities in nursery establishment, fruit forest development, agribusiness services, and climate-smart farming enterprises, strengthening long-term sustainability and economic resilience in farming communities.
Providing insights from the project’s baseline findings, Ortese said the baseline revealed low productivity driven by degraded soils and climate stress, alongside erratic rainfall, declining soil fertility, poor access to extension services, limited access to improved inputs, and small average farm sizes.
“At baseline, we saw that over 41 per cent of the land in the region where we are implementing the project is completely degraded. Over 60 per cent of it is completely deforested,” he said.
Ortese noted that the project’s evidence-based approach ensures interventions are targeted and measurable, while continuous monitoring and learning help improve implementation outcomes.
At the close of the webinar, the speakers called on governments to enforce environmental laws, incentivise land restoration, and expand extension services, while urging donors, private sector actors, and farmers to invest in and adopt sustainable practices that restore soil health and strengthen resilience.
The webinar spotlighted the ESTRRA Project—Empowerment of Smallholders to Thrive and Build Climate Resilience through Regenerative Agriculture—a three-year initiative being implemented by FSSS with funding support from the Heineken Africa Foundation.
The project is designed to directly reach 14,000 smallholder farmers and over 75,000 indirect beneficiaries across seven Local Government Areas—Gamawa, Giade, Katagum, Ja’amare, Zaki, Itas-Gadau and Shira—in Northern Bauchi State through climate-smart agriculture, regenerative land restoration, and market-driven approaches. A key component is the restoration of 29,000 hectares of degraded land through earth bund construction, fruit forests, and support delivered through the Farmers’ Hub model.