Abuja—Massive importation of food, especially, rice, wheat, sugar and fish, has continued to bleed the nation’s economy, with the four items accounting for a whopping N1 trillion loss to the nation annually.
Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, ARCN, Prof. Baba Abubakar, disclosed this at a sensitization seminar on Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs, and Agricultural Biotechnology, organised for staff of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development by Biotechnology Development Agency, in collaboration with other OFAB and National Bio-safety Management Agency, in Abuja, yesterday.
Abubakar, who was represented by the Acting Director, Partnership and Linkages Programme, Yarama Ndirpaya, noted with dismay that Nigeria had remained a large food importer, in-spite of massive uncultivated agricultural land across the country. He said: “Nigeria spends over N1 trillion on the top four food imports annually. And farmers have limited capacity and use techniques that adversely affect soil fertility, water and biodiversity. Human-induced climate change compounds the issue.”
According to him, Nigeria is the largest importer of US hard red and white wheat worth N635 billion annually; world’s number 2 importer of rice at N356 billion; N217 billion on sugar and N97 billion on fish.
Abubakar, who described the development as unacceptable, further noted that Nigerian farmers had limited capacity and used techniques that adversely affected soil fertility, water and biodiversity and warned that unless farmers were empowered with biotechnology, the problem might linger into the future.
Applying the principle of total productivity factor, TPF, he revealed that of Nigeria’s 98 Mha land, 74 Mha, representing 75 per cent was good for farming, but lamented that less than half was put to use.
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It’s baffling how Nigeria, with all the fertilie land at its disposal, still spends so much on food imports. Nigeria’s land is so fertile that if you don’t look after a land weekly it can turn into a bush in less than a month. And yet we import. Pardon me for saying this but I believe that most Nigerians are just lazy and greedy. We have abandoned a major cash cow just to chase a quick money spinner called oil. The average Nigerian is looking for how they can make big money by sitting at home or in some fancy office, make one or 2 calls and receive some juicy alert the next minute. We have ignored a God giving gift. Even now with the way the oil industry is, some greedy ones are still trying to get into it.
The govt and the people need to do something about these imports. Government needs to implement policies which give easy entry for companies to go into food processing and farming. Banks need to be ready and able to give out secured loans to people who are serious of going into agriculture. There is no point in having and promoting the existence and monopoly of the food industry by 2 companies who can’t cater to the demand of Nigeria’s growing population.
Nigerians themselves need to start patronising ‘high quality’ made Nigeria products. That is the only way we can really keep our home industries going and ensure employment.
Something of note. I know someone who attended the seminar and what he told me was a bit alarming. From the way some notable attendees spoke it looks like Nigeria will be adopting GMO. Now if this comes to pass, I feel we are going to be in a lot of trouble. They say it has no health risks, but I still believe there are long term health risks. I plead that our health ministry take a look at countries that use GMO crops and assess the rate of diseases and illnesses in their population, esoecially in the elderly from 50 and above.
Let us not take short cuts to the detriment of our long term health and well being.