FMAFS, NIHORT support Osun farmers with pineapple suckers to boost exportation

•Target distribution of 100,000 suckers to farmers

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, through the National Institute of Horticultural Research (NIHORT), Ibadan, has empowered FADAMA III farmers in Osun State with pineapple suckers and technical skills on how to plant in order to get optimal output.

Speaking during the handing over of the items to the farmers, held on NIHORT premises, Executive Director, NIHORT, Professor Muhammed Lawal Attanda, said the distribution of the suckers and the training on how to plant followed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed last year on having a disease-free planting material.

“After the MoU, we informed them that if we are going to come up with a disease-free planting material, which is the output of biotechnology method, it takes sometime, so we gave them between six and nine months to come back. This pineapple planting material we are talking about is precious to us in NIHORT being that the most common variety of pineapple we have is smooth cayenne.

“The one we are giving out today, about six to 10,000, are basically MD2 and sugarloaf. They have various utilitisation regarding their premium, for example they are mainly for export and they use them for concentrate. We have domesticated it, we have it in NIHORT, so we want to scale it out.

“The best way to scale it out is to get it across to the farmers and that is what we are doing today. We will still give them the training in order for them to get the desired result. We will also follow up with them to monitor the whole process,” he said.

Professor Attanda, while commenting on the exportation of the pineapple varieties, noted that some countries in the sub-West African region which specialised in the exportation of pineapple, concentrate on the MD2 and sugarloaf pineapple varieties.

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He stated further that the MD2 has unique features, which include a special aroma and the size portable making it suitable for export, unlike the smooth cayenne, which is very big and transportation can be difficult.

“This MD2 and sugarloaf are convenient for export because of their size and the shelf life is longer. We do not have much in Nigeria. That is why NIHORT and the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), in 2021/2022, went into an agreement and NEPC gave us some grant to domesticate these varieties of pineapple.

“We went to Ghana that time to import some quantities, now we have sufficient quantities. And what we did specifically with this one we have, we are using rapid multiplication technique which is a biotechnology approach to produce it. What this means is that if you plant one sucker, it can give you 10,000 suckers within the space of six months.

“The only challenge with the biotechnology is that you need constant supply of electricity which the Federal Government provided for us through the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

“We are managing the resources we have to get what we have today and that is why we are giving out ten to fifty thousand pineapple suckers to the farmers today. Our target is about fifty to hundred thousand, that is fifty thousand of MD2 and fifty thousand of sugarloaf,” Professor Attanda added.

Speaking on behalf of the farmers, Coordinator, Osun State FADAMA III farmers association, Mr Benjamin Oyekola, thanked the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and NIHORT for the distribution of the suckers, as well as the training on how to manage them.

Oyekola promised that the suckers will be properly put into use, saying that in few years to come, Osun State will be the hub of the MD2 and sugarloaf pineapple varieties in the country.