The National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB), in collaboration with Global Crop Diversity (Crop Trust), through the Seed for Resilience (SfR) project in Nigeria, has said that farmers in Oyo, Niger and Kano States will be trained on the cultivation of sorghum and cowpea in continuation of the project in Nigeria.
This, is just as the Director of NACGRAB, Dr Anthony Okere, advised farmers in Nigeria to always plant different varieties of a particular crop in order to guard against total loss during climate change challenges.
Okere gave the advice during a Technical Working Group (TWG) meeting on Seed for Resilience (SFR) project organised by NACGRAB in collaboration with Global Crop Diversity Trust ((Crop Trust) in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital recently.
Okere said that most farmers in Nigeria usually do mono-cropping which could lead to total loss whenever there was problem of climate change.
“We must encourage our farmers not to have only one accession of a particular crop on their field so that they can have something to fall back on whenever the issue of climate change challenges come on board.
“If they do this there will not be total lost for any farmers because we are trying to create a smart agriculture by way of resilience materials that farmers will always need,” the director said.
He said the Seed for Resilience (SFR) project aimed at establishing new modes of collaboration by encouraging and exposing diversity of crops to farmers so as to tackle climate change,
The director said that most farmers in Oyo State had been taught on better ways of cowpea and sorghum cultivations in the last three years.
Okere said that the clusters of farmers put together for the project would be the future drivers of food security in Nigeria when it comes to climate change.
“Most of the cluster groups that we have trained will help in seed multiplication of cowpea and Sorghum accessions,” Okere said.
Giving an update on the project, Mr Sunday Osewa, a NACGRAB staff, said that the project came into existence in 2021 to improve the efficiency of NACGRAB genebank and enhance the use of conserved gene pool by farmers and other users of genetic resources in Nigeria.
Osewa said that a total of 150 farmers in Oyo State were given cowpea and sorghum seeds accession for dissemination between January and August.
Osewa said that the farmers were selected in area such as Ipapo, Igboho, Kishi, Otu and Igboora, adding that the feedback gotten from them about the high yield of those seeds was very encouraging.
He said that there are more seed accessions in NACGRAB genebank that would be given to farmers.
In his remarks, Proffessor Owolade Feranmi, from Institute of Agriculture Research and Training (IAR&T), Ibadan, called on cowpea farmers to commence plantation between August 25 and Sept.10 and plant different varieties of cowpea to increase germination.
“Planting of different varieties will enable the farmers to identify those that can grow well in a particular climate change and this will reduce loss,” he said.
NACGRAB was established with the mandate to collect and conserve valuable genetic resources for food and agriculture and ensure that they are used sustainably.
READ ALSO: BREAKING: Tinubu removes DSS boss, appoints Ajayi as replacement
and then