Nigeria said it expended about 1 trillion naira on food importation, which includ rice, wheat, sugar and fish, country's Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) Baba Abubakar said.
Abubakar said this at a sensitization seminar on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) on Thursday.
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 1 trillion naira on the to import four food items annually. And farmers have limited capacity and use techniques that adversely affect soil fertility, water and biodiversity. Human-induced climate change compounds the issue.”
He noted that Nigeria is the largest importer of United States (US) hard red and white wheat worth 635 billion naira yearly; world’s number two importer of rice at 356 billion naira; 217 billion naira on sugar and 97 billion naira 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, he Nigeria has 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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