Prof. Victor Olowe, a Board Member of the International Society for Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR) has stated that one of the major constraints of organic livestock production in African countries is lack of organic feed.
Olowe therefore, called on Organic Livestock producers to embrace oilseed cakes to curb production shortage in Africa.
Olowe said this during his recent online presentation on the Production of Oilseed Crops and Value Chain organised by Journalists Go Organic Initiative.
He said an increase in organic oilseed production and processing can make more organic feedstuffs available.
Olowe who’s main area of research interest is agronomy of tropical oilseeds said that oilseeds thrive well across all the vegetational belts in Nigeria, yet the value chain is not utilised.
He said that Nigeria is presently the second largest producer of soybean in Africa after South Africa, second largest producer of sesame in Africa after Tanzania, and the fourth in the world behind Myanmar, India and Tanzania, yet she still lacks livestock feeds.
“There are no accurate data on the volume of the total organic oilseeds produced in Nigeria because of the high level of smuggling of vegetable oil going on across our borders.
“For example, most of our sesame seeds go outside the country illegally so the volumes of such exports are not captured by the National Bureau of Statistics.
“I always lament whenever I see children hawking roasted sesame, soyabeans and groundnuts on the streets because that’s how we waste valuable raw materials that can earn cool foreign exchange’’.
According to him, Nigeria’s installed annual soybean crushing capacity is 600,000 tonnes and that the soybean crushers are operating at 60 per cent, which is resulting in their inability to meet the ever-growing demand for soybean oil and meal by consumers.
