Post by Ismail AbdulAzeez on Sept 18, 2019 17:50:52 GMT 1
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Orgnanisation (FAO) has lauded Nigeria’s potential in ensuring food security, adding that it has enough commodities to export.
This was revealed by FAO’s National Consultant, Dr. Emmanuel Odunze at the opening of a two-day Step-Down workshop on the ‘Revised and Harmonised Characterisation, Inventory and Monitoring of Animal Genetic Resources tools for Africa’, organized by the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) in Abuja.
According to Odunze, Nigeria has a vast potential in ensuring food security, but the country needs to harness these potentials in every possible way.
In his words, “You can see the fertile lands, the genetic breeds, Nigeria has the potential in food security and can even export; government should try more in allocating resources and deploying the right manpower to the food and agriculture sector.”
The FAO consultant added that Nigeria needs to deploy more resources and manpower for logistics in order to increase food production, while also calling on the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to support the private sector in furthering this course.
While highlighting on the need to utilize genetic resources, Odunze said, “We are here to support NABDA in genetic animal resources because we believe that it is a very important component in livestock production for us to have a resilient genetic resource in Nigeria.”
“Some of our genetic breeds are going extinct and the only way to conserve them is to have a reference lab and have the manpower resources to sustain what we have.”
He stated that characterisation was an essential factor in improving animal potential and categorisation for cross-breeding in a bid to achieve ideal result.
Odunze further reiterated FAO’s commitment to intervening in any area Nigeria needed assistance, adding that the organization has set a plan of action for countries across the globe to take the stride on animal genetic resources.
This was revealed by FAO’s National Consultant, Dr. Emmanuel Odunze at the opening of a two-day Step-Down workshop on the ‘Revised and Harmonised Characterisation, Inventory and Monitoring of Animal Genetic Resources tools for Africa’, organized by the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) in Abuja.
According to Odunze, Nigeria has a vast potential in ensuring food security, but the country needs to harness these potentials in every possible way.
In his words, “You can see the fertile lands, the genetic breeds, Nigeria has the potential in food security and can even export; government should try more in allocating resources and deploying the right manpower to the food and agriculture sector.”
The FAO consultant added that Nigeria needs to deploy more resources and manpower for logistics in order to increase food production, while also calling on the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to support the private sector in furthering this course.
While highlighting on the need to utilize genetic resources, Odunze said, “We are here to support NABDA in genetic animal resources because we believe that it is a very important component in livestock production for us to have a resilient genetic resource in Nigeria.”
“Some of our genetic breeds are going extinct and the only way to conserve them is to have a reference lab and have the manpower resources to sustain what we have.”
He stated that characterisation was an essential factor in improving animal potential and categorisation for cross-breeding in a bid to achieve ideal result.
Odunze further reiterated FAO’s commitment to intervening in any area Nigeria needed assistance, adding that the organization has set a plan of action for countries across the globe to take the stride on animal genetic resources.
