20 July , 2024
Prof. Olalekan Akinbo, an expert at African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), has urged the Federal Government to put effective measures in place to tackle food insecurity in the country.
Akinbo gave the advice on Saturday in a phone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday.
According to him, food insecurity may likely lead to crisis as many African countries are unable to meet the food demands of growing population, with the situation worsened by climate change and disease outbreaks.
Akinbo, who is Technical Lead, Genome Editing Programme of the AUDA-NEPAD Centre of Excellence in Science, Technology and Innovation, advised that deploying biotechnology was key.
He said African countries should deploy biotechnology for the improvement of existing crop varieties, emphasising that tolerance or resistance to both biotic and abiotic stresses was crucial to increasing crop production.
Biotic refers to living organisms in the environment, while abiotic refers to non living things.
“Biotechnology approaches will not only complement conventional breeding methods in the pursuit of crop improvements, it remains a viable and sustainable means of tackling specific issues hindering crop production,” he said.
He hinted that in order to optimise crop production, several African countries implemented strategies to make use of biotechnology.
“For example, Nigerian government implemented the National Biotechnology Policy to facilitate capacity building, research, bio-resources development and commercialisation of biotechnology products for over two decades,” he said.
The expert noted that several government ministries, research centres, universities and agencies have worked together to implement the policy, resulting in the release of some genetically modified crops to farmers for cultivation and commercialisation.
“This is a significant accomplishment, ” the expert said.
He clarified that it was necessary for African universities to develop capacity in various aspects of biotechnology, to train indigenous scientists.
According to him, this will enable these scientists to generate innovative ideas tailored towards solving problems which are peculiar to their respective countries.
Akinbo expressed optimism that training of indigenous scientists on biotechnology would prevent them from seeing the technology as alien.
According to him, this will also fast track its adoption by many African countries.