Residents of Okoro-Utip, a community in Akwa Ibom, persist in enduring the ceaseless and detrimental impact of oil exploration in their vicinity.
Over the years, the community members have voiced their grievances regarding the adverse effects of oil exploration and spills caused by the activities of multinational oil company, Exxon Mobil, within their local government, Ibeno.
The persistent oil spills and gas flares have undoubtedly taken a toll on their terrestrial and aquatic agriculture, as well as their environment, resulting in a lack of significant yields during each harvest season.
In an interview, Pastor AbasiUbong John, a resident of Okoro-Utip, expressed frustration that cassava stems planted over a year ago had still not produced tubers, highlighting the prolonged impact of oil exploration on agricultural productivity in the area.
Similarly, Rhoda Peters, a farmer and women leader in Upenekang community, lamented that despite applying fertilizers to her crops, the yields remained disheartening, attributing this to the soil’s compromised texture resulting from oil spills.
She further noted that this situation had led to food scarcity and hunger within the community, resulting in inflated prices for the limited available food items.
Expressing her worries, Peters said, “Things are so difficult in our area.
“Imagine a cup of garri is sold at N300 and a bag of sachet water N500. We have no choice but to go back to our farms. I have five girls in my house and how much garri can I buy to feed them?
“The challenge is that despite the fact that I apply chemical fertiliser, the harvest is nothing to write home about. I cry each time I harvest my crops.”
In the meantime, the community may soon find some relief thanks to the training provided by an ecological think tank organization, Health Of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), on Agroecology and Mangrove restoration.
The Programme Manager, Fossil Politics in HOMEF, Stephen Oduware, noted that the community had lost its mangrove ecosystem on account of pollution and felling of trees by the locals, adding that the organisation was working towards how to restore it.
To accomplish this goal, HOMEF has committed to training the severely affected community in agroecology and mangrove restoration.
This involves teaching them how to create organic fertilizers and pesticides using locally available materials such as cow dung, cow urine, bananas, cowpeas, soil, water, garlic, and other indigenous ingredients.
“Here we are having a practical training session on how they can restore these mangrove using the pods and seeds of these mangrove and we have the issue of the evasive specie of Nipa palm that is foreign to us.
“Communities should start looking at ways of removing these evasive species that are not native and start replacing it with mangroves which support farming, support the community against dangerous storms from the sea and support fishery.”
Nevertheless, he remains optimistic that by the conclusion of the training, the community will devise a comprehensive restoration plan outlining how they intend to utilize the knowledge acquired during the sessions to revitalize their environment, reclaim their farmlands, and rehabilitate the depleted mangrove forest.
The facilitator, Iwan-Aondover Barnabas, clarified that applying the organic manure mixture to the soil would enhance its quality and revitalize the once unproductive lands in the area.
He said, “what our farmers lack is knowledge for production, how to engage in practices that would increase their production, now they know they can produce their fertilisers and pesticides with things around them.
“This will save them the cost of buying chemical fertiliser and will add more value to the forest system they have.
“It will also rejuvenate all the poor lands that are no longer productive and this will add value to the land.”
