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Showing posts with label Agriculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agriculture. Show all posts

Monday, 26 August 2019

Sesame farmers in Gombe expect bumper harvest

August 26, 2019 0
Some sesame farmers in Gombe State say they are confident of bumper harvest following the favourable rainfall being witnessed this cropping season.
The farmers in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Gombe, said they were hopeful of good harvest when compared to the previous season.
A youth farmer, Mr Yusuf Sabo said he was excited anytime he went to his sesame farm to see how good the yield was, adding that he was confident of getting good returns on his investment.
“By the grace of God, I am expecting a bumper harvest and it will be a blessing to me. I am so happy anytime I go to the farm to see how my farm looks healthy.
“The rain has been favourable this year. I can attest to that and we thank God. It came at the right time and it has been falling in a way that every farmer here expects.
“I even planted beans not too long ago and it has come out good because of the rains. It is just moderate enough for my crops and I am already seeing the gains in agriculture as a youth.
“I chose to farm sesame this year because it is easy to maintain and without fertilisers, you will still have your yield intact,’’ he said.
While acknowledging that a lot of farmers opted for sesame this year, the young farmer said that he was not disturbed that the price might fall as a result of a possible glut in the market.

“I am not afraid that many farmers cultivated sesame which may lead to a glut but no matter how low the prices maybe, I am sure I will have my returns and make enough profit.’’
Sabo urged the government to make provision for adequate fertiliser early and help to regulate the prices so that farmers would not jettison the cultivation of certain crops that required the use of fertilisers.
He called on youth to find vocation in agriculture, saying “with little, one could get good returns like no other business as the market is available from the point of harvest.’’
Alhaji Suleiman Lano, a sesame farmer from Yamaltu-Deba, said since the commencement of the raining season, all farming activities had been productive.
“My crop is doing well since the commencement of the rains and we can only but thank Allah for His mercies this year. We are so excited that the yields are coming out better.
“I didn’t witness any issue of crop infestation this year and the ministry of agriculture has been particularly helpful in sensitisation and practical assistance on how to handle pest on the field.’’
Lano appealed to the government to step in after harvest to protect sesame farmers and expressed fears of a possible fall in price, which according to him might discourage sesame cultivation in subsequent seasons.
Another farmer, Haruna Mohammed said: “Before the recent rainfall that led to excessive flooding that ravaged our farms, things were looking good ahead of harvest as we had invested a lot of money.
“We cannot blame Allah but we believe the blessing of the rain is good for all farmers irrespective of what comes afterward. So we are not too happy but Allah knows best,’’ he said.
Mohammed appealed for supports from the state government not just in giving them aids but addressing the issues that led to the flooding so the sources of their livelihood were not destroyed annually.
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Saturday, 25 May 2019

VSF distributes N600 million farm inputs to victims of Boko Haram

May 25, 2019 0
The Victim Support Fund (VSF) on Thursday commenced the distribution of farm inputs worth N600 million to 4,000 households who were affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.
The three states are the most affected by the insurgency which has claimed thousands of lives since 2009. Millions of people have also been displaced by the insurgency.
Speaking at the flag-off ceremony in Garubula village of Biu Local Government Area in Borno, the Director of VSF, Sunday Ocheche, said the inputs comprised of seeds, herbicides, fertilizer and power tillers.
He said 2,000 households in Borno would benefit from the gesture. He said the remaining 2,000 households were drawn from Adamawa and Yobe states. He said each household was expected to cultivate one hectare of land.
Mr Ocheche had engaged community-based organisations to monitor the distribution of the items to ensure that same reached the targeted groups.
According to him, at the end of the farming season, VSF will organise an agricultural show and the community that came first would be rewarded.
In his speech, Theopilus Danjuma, chairman of VSF, said they had been intervening in many communities affected by insurgency.
Represented by Gloria Shoda, National President of National Council for Women Societies, Mr Danjuma urged the beneficiaries to utilise the items for the purpose they were meant.
Flagging-off the distribution,Governor Kashim Shetima of Borno said the contribution of humanitarian organisations could not be under-estimated.
Represented by Usman Daka, chairman, Biu Local Government Area, the governor said government would continue to accept laudable initiatives by well-meaning Nigerians.
The VSF is one of the government intervention agencies set up to assist victims of the Book Haram insurgency.
Its activities are expected to wind up soon following President Muhammadu Buhari’s recent inauguration of the board of the North East Development Commission. The president said all other agencies set up to intervene in the North-east would be subsumed in the commission.
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Non-passage of key agricultural bills worries Nigerian farmers, experts

May 25, 2019 0
Farmers and experts last Friday lamented that two bills, the fertiliser quality control bill and the seed bill are yet to get presidential assent; while a third, the warehouse regulatory bill is yet to be passed by the National Assembly.
These bills, among others, will ensure that farmers enjoy high yields of agriculture produce. They will also promote adequate manpower, disease resistant varieties and unadulterated fertilisers, the experts said at the dialogue organised by the Nigeria Economic Summit Group in Abuja.
They will also lead to increased soil fertility, sustainable profit, improved storage facilities and also aid the availability of agricultural produce all year round.
The seed bill, promoted by the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), will provide an opportunity to align Nigerian seeds system with ECOWAS seed regulatory framework.
It will also ensure regulation of foreign-bred varieties before release into the Nigerian market.
The fertiliser bill will protect the interest of farmers against nutrient deficiencies, adulteration and short weight. It will also safeguard the interest of fertiliser enterprises.
Appeals
A farmer, Mary Ishaya, said the benefits of the bills have not been explained to farmers.
She said a lot of vegetables are produced by farmers “and they get spoilt due to poor storage facilities.”
“Since I grew up, I have never seen a warehouse for agric goods,” she said.
She, however, said there is a need for the bills to be passed quickly. She said fertilisers are expensive as farmers no longer have access to subsidised ones.
She disclosed that farmers have resolved to use organic fertilisers because they are cheaper “and do not destroy the soil.”
“We also want to have access to credit,” she said.
A fertiliser expert, Ishaka Buba, said the fertiliser bill will help ensure quality outputs by farmers.
He said many industries produce substandard products. “There is need for the bill so that the product can be regulated,” he said.
Mr Buba lamented that farmers are helpless as they are being cheated by the manufacturers.
A farmer, Timi Agaba said warehouses will help build sustainable agriculture in Nigeria. He said they will help reduce wastage of agricultural produce during and after harvest.
“Without good warehouses, farmers are forced to sell below the cost price,” he said. He said the warehouses may not be sufficient but will be affordable to small scale farmers.
A member of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), Feyi Ajayi, said the bills are important for the economic development of the country.
Ms Ajayi said many farmers put in a lot of efforts but they harvest little or nothing.
“Some fertilisers damage the soil. Even after production they (farmers) lack storage capacity,” she said.
Ms Ajayi said NESG will ensure that the bills are passed into law and implemented.
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Growers push ‘organic’ cannabis – with a higher price tag as marijuana prices drop

May 25, 2019 0
DENVER — Organic milk. Organic beef. Organic… weed?
As marijuana legalization drives down the price of pot, cannabis companies are increasingly marketing premium products with the same kinds of language used by Whole Foods or winemakers, invoking sunny fields of plants tended by smiling famers.
But eager retailers are running into an unexpected obstacle: Americans who are still shocked that they can legally buy cannabis — any cannabis —   aren’t yet willing to pay extra for higher quality, in many cases because they don’t realize there’s a difference.
“When we all grew up it was all Wonderbread and cheap eggs. I never asked if something was grass-fed and cage free,” said Maka Kalai, a Colorado marijuana dispensary worker. “There’s still people out there who think weed is weed.”
Step inside a legal dispensary, however, and you’ll find a massive range of marijuana for sale. Different strains can have different tastes and effects, in the same way that wine and tequila both contain alcohol but can produce a very different kind of evening.
Cannabis legalization has helped jumpstart the availability of strains with names like Durban Poison, Blue Dream or Strawberry Cough, but it is state-run quality testing that’s prompted some marijuana to push toward organic growing practices.
Sunshine Johnston has been farming cannabis in northern California’s Humboldt County for more than a decade. Marketing her marijuana as “SunBoldt Grown,” Johnston avoids heavy fertilizer and pesticide use, believing her clean-grown plants will give users a better-quality high.
“I want to taste the terroir, the nature,” said Johnston, 47. “I value what nature brings to the cannabis. By not using fertilizer, I believe I get a greater taste of place.”
Like the factory farms that produce most of the United States’ milk, eggs, chicken and beef, many cannabis growers pump their plants full of fertilizer and flood them with pesticides. That’s no surprise, given that a single pot plant can produce upwards of $1,000 of marijuana for sale.
Much of the marijuana grown in states like Colorado, Michigan and Oregon is raised indoors in vast warehouses kept to a carefully timed cycle designed to rush the plants to maturity so they can be harvested and sold every few months.
That’s becoming a race to the bottom, experts say, because highly efficient growing techniques being deployed by large, licensed producers are pushing prices lower and lower, wiping out the traditionally strong margins enjoyed by black-market growers who didn’t pay taxes.
In response, some smaller cannabis growers are betting that some consumers are willing to pay a little more for high-quality pot. But it’s a bet that hasn’t yet paid off.
Low-quality marijuana sells wholesale for as low as $300 a pound, while higher-quality cannabis can wholesale for upwards of $1,800 a pound. But retailers can sell that low-quality pot for roughly the same price as the high-quality stuff and pocket the difference.
“There’s a reason that Walmart sells organic produce, and it’s not because the company thought it was the right thing to do,” said Amy Andrle, the co-founder of Denver’s L’Eagle cannabis dispensary. “That reason never comes from the top. It comes from the consumer.”
For generations, most American pot smokers had few options: They bought a baggie of marijuana from a black-market dealer, its provenance unknown. While craft beer drinkers savored the hops and barley and yeasts used to produce their favored intoxicant, and wine snobs muttered on about vintages and grape sugar levels, weed was just weed. Sometimes it was stronger. Sometimes it was weaker. Sometimes it gave you a headache. But almost no one had any real idea what they were smoking.
Medical marijuana began to change that. Starting with California in 1996, patients began getting a wider view at what had long been hidden, as growers grew more comfortable sharing their strains and techniques in places other than the pages of High Times.
But without any regulation — and with vast profits to be made — growers also began pumping their plants full of pesticides, fertilizer and other chemicals designed to protect them from insects, mites and fungal infections. With government regulators unwilling to step in, growers and retailers made all kinds of health claims about their pot and consumers were left without any outside guidance.
It wasn’t until Colorado’s voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2014 that regulators anywhere in the United States started getting serious about testing what was actually in cannabis products, although they were at first primarily focused on marijuana content. Colorado’s regulators needed four more years to launch mandatory pesticide testing, but now every state that’s legalized recreational cannabis also requires quality and contaminant testing.
Unlike tobacco, there’s no central system for regulating cannabis products. That means each state with legalized medical or recreational marijuana has developed its own standards and testing rules. And because each state handles testing differently, products that might pass Colorado’s testing rules might be banned in California, particularly when it comes to contaminants like heavy metals, which can enter products through the extraction process used to make vape cartridges.
Testing company CannaSafe, which checks cannabis in California, says that as recently as a year ago, nearly 25% of the marijuana it tested had too much pesticide in it. Today, the fail rate has dropped to less than 3%.
“It’s all about your profit. It can be expensive to not use pesticides,” said Johnston, who grows a strain known as “Loopy Fruit” in California. Johnston said she’s seen an increase in spider mites, aphids, and russet mites, which lay their eggs on new leaves and stunt plant growth. Dousing her plants with chemicals would kill off those bugs and increase her yields, but that’s not how she wants to farm.
“If I had to use Roundup and pesticides, I’d not grow at all,” Johnston said. “It’s not about me as a grower, but what the plant has to offer.” Still, she’s frustrated that consumers aren’t yet ready to pay more for higher-quality products.
At Andrle’s dispensary in Denver, hundreds of marijuana plants grow beneath rows of high-intensity lights designed to mimic the sun. Growing indoors helps protect the plants from insects that would otherwise have to be controlled via pesticides, and visitors must wash their shoes before entering, to protect against soil-borne contaminants.
While many grow operations follow similar practices, Andrle’s is unique in that it’s one of only a relative handful with third-party Clean Green Certification. She said growing that way costs about 25% more but, and it’s a cost difference she has to absorb because consumers just aren’t ready to pay extra.
In states with legal marijuana, retail prices have also dropped as competition increases: In Colorado, for instance, the price of smokable “flower” has dropped 40 percent since January 2014, from $7 a gram to about $4.19 a gram today, according to BDS Analytics. In California, retail prices have stayed steady while wholesale prices have dropped 20% since legal recreational sales began last year, said Matt Karnes, the managing partner of GreenWave Advisors, citing data collected by Cannabis Benchmarks.
While some producers are focusing on volume, enthusiasts say cannabis produced without artificial fertilizers and pesticides provides a purer, cleaner “high,” much the way some people think organic milk tastes better. Contaminants are also a major concern for medical marijuana users, who say they want to be sure the pot they’re consuming is as pure as possible.
The federal government won’t certify any marijuana as organic because it remains a Schedule 1 controlled substance, although some independent groups will certify it as grown according to organic principles.
Kalai, the dispensary worker, says he and his colleagues at the Fort Collins, Colorado-based shop Organic Alternatives are careful not to claim the marijuana itself is organic, even if they follow organic practices. “I really believe you can taste the difference,” said Kalai, 40. “But the market and the mass consumers aren’t there yet. A lot of people turn a blind eye and go with the cheap option.”
Andrle, 45, said she believes the industry will ultimately segment in the same way grocery stores offer both organic and conventionally grown produce, and she said she’s frustrated that some marijuana growers improperly market themselves as organic when they aren’t, and there’s no one to police it.
“You have to allow the consumers to connect the dots,” she said. “But there also has to be a way for people to double-check.”
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Monday, 6 May 2019

1 million species threatened with extinction – UN-backed report

May 06, 2019 0
The United Nations and over 130 governments on Monday said up to a million species are threatened with extinction as nature suffers an “unprecedented’’ decline.
“Humankind needs to make a transformative change if the negative trends are to be arrested,’’ the intergovernmental panel on biodiversity and ecosystems, known as IPBES, said.
IPBES head Robert Watson said that the report presented an “ominous picture’’.
“We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.
“The biggest cause of the decline was change in land and sea use, with direct human use of plants and animals in second place,’’ Watson said.
Climate change was the third-biggest driver of species loss, however was likely to have an increasing impact in coming decades.
It was already impacting nature at all scales from genetics up to ecosystems.
“The rate of species extinction is accelerating, and is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average of the last 10 million years, the report said.
The one million species at risk represent an eighth of the estimated total number of plant and animal species thought to exist.
Over half a million of them no longer have enough habitats for long term survival without habitat restoration.
“It was not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global,’’ Watson said.
He added that through “transformative change,’’ nature could still be conserved.
“That would mean a fundamental, system-wide reorganization of technology, economics and society,’’ he warned.
The report said global financial and economic systems would have to evolve to build a global sustainable economy, steering away from the currently limited paradigm of economic growth.
A summary of the report aimed at policymakers said efforts to lower total consumption of goods and waste were essential.
But so too were changing attitudes, including “enabling visions of a good quality of life that do not entail ever-increasing material consumption.’’
(dpa/NAN)
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Monday, 29 April 2019

Nigerian govt urges farmers to acquire 40% of BoA shares

April 29, 2019 0
The federal government has appealed to farmers to prepare for the purchase of 40 percent shares of the newly privatised Bank of Agriculture (BoA), to join in the ownership of the bank.
Audu Ogbeh, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.
Mr. Ogbeh said that move would help to create a viable and virile farmers’ bank like their counterpart in the Netherlands and China.
The minister explained that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Ministry of Finance would own 20 percent capital each while the private sector and investors would have 20 percent shares.
According to him, farmers will have 40 percent shares.
“We want to call on all farmers, old and new, male or female everywhere in Nigeria to prepare to buy shares in the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) when the sale opens.
“It is time to join in owning the farmers’ bank.
“Our administration, upon assumption of office, decided to take steps to stabilize, commercialize, and partially privatize the Bank of Agriculture so it ceases to be wholly government bank constantly losing money.
“I decided that we needed to restructure the BoA to make it run more efficiently and like similar Banks in Holland and China.
“We proposed this to the National Economic Committee, headed by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
“Thereafter, the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) took over and after several months, concluded the work.
“The bank is expected to have a capital structure of N250 billion.
“CBN will own 20 percent, Ministry of Finance- 20 percent, private sector/corporate groups, including investors, will have 20 percent and farmers will have 40 percent shares.
“Our desire is to create a viable and virile farmers’ Bank like it exists in China and Holland,’’ the minister said.
The Director-General of BPE, Alex Okoh, had said that the privatization process would be finalized in 90 days.
(NAN)
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Monday, 22 April 2019

World Bank to support social investments in Ekiti farms

April 22, 2019 0
Ekiti State under the leadership of Governor Kayode Fayemi would continue to enjoy the Work Bank support in the various agricultural policies and programmes of the present administration.
Governor Fayemi hinted this on Sunday at his Isan-Ekiti country home.
Specifically, the governor said his administration has secured the World Bank’s support for the initiative called Rural Access and Marketing Programme (RAMP).
He explained that the programme will connect Ekiti rural communities to the urban centres and market places as well as help in the reconstruction of farm settlements many of which were built in the fifties by the late Sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, but were not put to good use.
The Governor explained that the initiative would help provide basic amenities at the farm settlements so as to encourage farmers in the areas to focus on their agricultural activities.
“One of my assistants is going to be focusing on agric and farmsteads because, in the course of my campaigns, I went around those farmsteads. My wife also toured the farmsteads extensively.
“There are things that are required by the people in those farms that will make their work a lot better in terms of social amenities, social investment, in terms of ensuring that we connect the farms to the market.
“So we have another initiative that is being supported by the World Bank which is known as Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Programme (RAMP).
“This is meant to assist us to connect our rural communities to the urban centres and the market places in the hope that we can also reconstruct our farm settlements, provide the necessary amenities there and ensure that our people stay back in those places without missing the amenities they ought to have if they were to be in the cities,” he said.
While speaking on the College of Technical and Commercial Agriculture which was scrapped by his predecessor, Governor Fayemi said a bill for the re-enactment of the College establishment law will soon be sent back to the State House of Assembly to enable the school to begin operation legally.
The governor who disclosed that the ongoing construction works in the school would be completed before September when the school would open for academic activities said the College was designed to train and equip young people who are interested in agriculture agric value chain.
His words: “Work has resumed there and significant progress has been made on the road construction. I believe the builders are also on site.
“The idea is that the school will be ready for use by the opening of a new session in September-October. Some six months of intense work should get it ready.
“The law is going back to the Assembly for re-enactment because of what the last administration did to it and once that is done, it is legally covered to undertake the business of recruiting our young people who are interested in becoming middle -level managers and technical operators in commercial agriculture in Ekiti.
“Since we have decided that agriculture is important to us as an agrarian society and none of our young people is interested in hoe and cutlass farming.
“They want modernization and the tools that will enable them to participate in the entire value chain right from planting to processing and marketing. As government, we are prepared to give necessary support and incentives.”
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Tuesday, 16 April 2019

Nigerian farmers brainstorm on dangers of agro-chemicals, GMOs

April 16, 2019 0
Nenwe is among the five towns that make up Aninri Local Government Area of Enugu State. With a population of about 10,000 inhabitants, the majority of its residents are subsistent farmers.
The cash crops it is known for are okra, cassava and rice.
Lovelyn Ejim, an indigene, said farmers in the community have been using Roundup – the world’s most widely used herbicide whose active ingredient, glyphosate is contentious – for weed control for more than a decade until early this year when tragedy struck.
The mother-of-three, who cultivates about two hectares of farmland in Nenwe with her family, explained how the use of the herbicides resulted in the stunted growth of okra.
She was among the 100 delegates at the conference on Seeds, Food and Biosafety organised by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) on Thursday in Abuja.
“Okra is one of our major cash crops that generate a lot of money. We plant it in the first rain (February) but it’s too unfortunate this period. The first rain came, we planted but it did not germinate,” the farmer revealed at the event.
“The few that germinated did not grow up to two inches and it started flowering which makes its yield meaningless. We then realised if care is not taken, there will be serious scarcity of okra and vegetables generally so we called in an expert…”
Okra is a vegetable crop which originated from West Africa. Okra green seed pods can be consumed as vegetables or added to soup, stews and salads either fresh, dried, boiled or fried. Okra thrives well in fertile, well-drained soil, preferably loamy.
Mrs Ejim said analyses from experts revealed that the soil has been made toxic due to the continuous use of the herbicides.
IMG_20190410_135717 (1)
“Expert analysis revealed that the Roundup and Touchdown herbicides we use for weed control contains high percentages of glyphosate which when used over a period in a particular soil creates adverse impact.
“It also found that this year’s rain did not come early and as a result, has generated heat under the earth meaning that instead of the soil being a cooling place, it becomes a boiling point for anything inside it.
“The long and short of this is that we will not have Okra harvest in the entire community this season because all the farms are affected and we can neither recall the seed already planted or replant because this is April. We have lost it…”
Glyphosate
Roundup is the brand name for the herbicide, glyphosate, originally produced by Monsanto, a global agro-giant acquired by German company Bayer for about $63 billion last June.
Glyphosate prevents plants, including weeds from being able to make the proteins they need to survive. Since virtually all plants make these essential proteins the same way, glyphosate affects nearly all plants and that is why it’s deemed a “broad-spectrum” herbicide.
While Roundup is a great weed killer, its broad-spectrum effects make it a decent crop killer which may be the case of the Okra in Nenwe.
To tackle this challenge, in 1996, Monsanto introduced the Roundup Ready soybean, a genetically engineered crop resistant to glyphosate. Few years after, Roundup Ready cotton, maize, and various other crops also made their debut.
Millions of farmers in Nigeria just like those in Nenwe make use of Roundup and other agrochemicals for weed control without knowing its effects on crops that are not glyphosate resistant.
Moreso, they do not make use of protective measures – something experts said will create health complications due to long time exposures.
Global outcry
Last year, global calls for the ban of the glyphosate was rekindled after a landmark US court ruling in San Francisco awarded $289 million to a man they declared got cancer from Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide.
The victim, Dewayne Johnson, 46, currently dying of cancer was exposed to the weed killer while applying it about 30 times annually when working as a groundskeeper for a school in San Francisco, USA.
IMG_20190410_133116 (1)
The ruling heightened the already global concerns over the safety of the product.
The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded in 2015 that glyphosate was a probable cause of cancer in humans.
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment also concluded it is known to cause cancer.
But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it is not likely to cause cancer in humans, as has the UN’s pesticide review group and the European Food Safety Authority.
Low Awareness
While the debate over the use of glyphosate continued globally, Thursday’s conference comprising farmers, academics, researchers, government officials, among others decried the poor level of awareness of agro-chemicals and genetically modified crops (GMOs) in Nigeria.
Casmir Ifeanyi, a microbiologist, said “these crops slip into our food chain and become very circulatory in the country.
“If exposure to glyphosate, the major ingredient in Roundup weed killers can be harmful to the soil, plants and even humans, why should we not be worried about the side-effect of the GMO crops created to resist the adverse effect of these chemicals?”
Nicholas Chibueze, chairman of the Nigerian Cassava Farmers Association, FCT Chapter, said awareness on GMOs is yet to circulate widely.
“If Nigerians have basic knowledge on GMOs, they will now make informed decisions.
“Even if you chose GMO, you know what you are choosing but when the information is not wide, it seems as if these things are forced down on us. Some of my colleagues, up till today, still ask what is GMO when its mentioned.”
Apart from using Roundup, Mrs Ejim also explained how the use of GM seeds might contribute to the soil toxicity observed in their farms.
“If you go to the seed market, you will see the GM maize seeds. They will say when you plant it, one strand of the maize crop will give you four cups but in the end, you will only get two.
“Me, as a person, I don’t like planting maize so I stopped. The bottom line is that the chain reaction of planting some of these GM crops manifested in our okra. We don’t even know they are GMOs. They will tell you its improved seeds.
“For me, I will say that we should not lose focus on our indigenous plants no matter what we want to bring in.”
Takeaway
According to Nnimo Bassey, the director of HOMEF, the conference was necessitated by “confusion on the kind of seeds given and shared by Nigerian farmers”.
“The seed in circulation does not tend to respond in a way the farmers understand so we thought it was necessary we discuss the issue of seeds and the impending joining of the UPOV (Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties) by the Nigerian government.
“There is a move to get Nigeria to join the UPOV, a body of laws protecting rights to seeds’, formed in 1991 to which we are (were) never part of the negotiation from day one.
“Also, there are more concerns about biosafety issues. There is a lot of information being pushed out to the public that all is well with biosafety and we felt that things are actually worse than they have ever been. We felt that this is the time to share information, knowledge and ideas on how to defend our soil, seeds and foods and biosafety,” he said.
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