Expert urges Nigerians to adopt natural farming practices

The Country Coordinator, Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative (EOAI), DrOlugbengaOlaoluwa,has called on Nigerians to adopt natural farming practices so as to protect the environment and boost food production. He made the call in a lecture he delivered at a one-day stakeholders’ meeting in Awka on Wednesday.

Olaoluwa said that the advent of inorganic fertilisers as well as genetically modified and engineered inputs had caused untold damage to the ecosystem. He called on the Federal Government to support and protect farmers who opted for organic farming in order to save the country from health challenges like cancer. He said that his agency’s project was aimed at ensuring maximum agricultural production via the adoption of natural methods of farming.

Olaoluwa called on the stakeholders in the South-East and South-South geopolitical zones to set up structures that would strengthen the people’s awareness of organic farming. Speaking on the workshop, Mr Nnamdi Ibezim, the Regional Director of the Enugu office of Federal Ministry of Agriculture, said that it was in line with the objectives of the Federal Government’s programme on promoting sustainable agriculture.

Ibezim, who rated the country’s agricultural production as high, said that the population of the country was, however, putting enormous pressure on the food supply chain. He noted that food production in the South East had increased considerably and pledged that the Federal Government would render the necessary support to farmers in the region. “The Federal Government’s position is in tandem with the advocacy, especially at this time when we are promoting the export of agricultural produce; we need to meet the international standard.

“There are quality tests for genetically modified (GM) crops but people are careful because of the reliability of the results. GM foods are a global concept that is not bad in itself but we are trying to avoid GM foods as much as possible,’’ Ibezim. On his part, MrEmekaOkoli, Director of Technical Services, Anambra Ministry of Agriculture, said that the state government had already adopted the use of organic fertilisers in its agricultural programmes.

He said that the state’s agricultural extension workers and officials had been reaching out to farmers so as to sensitise them to the health and environmental implications of using of inorganic fertilisers. Okoli said that the state’s farmers would benefit a lot from the programmes of EOAI, particularly in their efforts to boost food production. The Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative in Africa was established in line with the decisions of the African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government.

The overall goal of the Action Plan is to mainstream ecological organic agriculture into national agricultural production systems by 2020. The pilot phase of the initiative began in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia (East Africa), Nigeria (West Africa) and Zambia (Southern Africa) in 2012 under the aegis of AU Commission with funding from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC).