As the markets and demand of organic agricultural products continue to increase, Nigeria experts in the sector have called for the development of regulation for the agroecology practices in Nigeria.
Speaking on Monday during agroecology meeting on the topic, “Opportunities and Challenges for Agroecology and What Should be Advocacy for Different Stakeholders,” the ActionAid Nigeria, Food and Agriculture Programme Manager, Azubike Nwokoye, said Nigeria loses about $362.5m yearly in terms of foreign exchange to the ban on the exportation of beans in the last eight years, hence the need to encourage organic farming.
According to Azubike, agroecology is capable of minimizing future widespread disruptions of the nation’s food supplies by pandemics and climate change by enhancing linkages between small-scale food production and local consumption.
He therefore called for a National Agroecology Strategy to be domiciled in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security for coordination and scale up of Agroecology Programmes in Nigeria.
He said Organic Agriculture is one of the fastest developing sectors of agriculture globally n Organic Agriculture is also one of the easily misconstrued aspects of agriculture, hence Nigeria should take advantage to earn more foreign exchange.
He lamented the fact that despite many opportunities, development of organic agriculture in Nigeria is still very low.
Adding that though agroecology is also a recent concept in agriculture. but poor understanding of organic agriculture and that agroecology could be the reason for their poor development in Nigeria compared to leading countries in Africa.
He therefore recommended a proper understanding of organic agriculture and agroecology as this is needed for the effective development in Nigeria.
“As part of what should be done to solve the problem of highly hazardous pesticides, he said there should be National Framework for Indigenous Plants, Seeds, Seedlings and Livestock for Agrobiodiversity Preservation and Promotion
