Minister Expresses Optimism on Contec’s Organic Labs as Solution to Nigeria’s Food Shortage

The Minister of State for Environment, Mallam Ibrahim Jubril, has assured that Nigeria’s food shortage can be addressed with the adoption of Contec Global Agro’s tissue culture and bio-solution organic fertilizer laboratories across the country.

Speaking after inspecting the company’s biotechnology research l-aboratories, in Maitama, Abuja while being led by the Company’s Managing Director, Mr. Thomas Chackunkal, the minister said replicating the facilities across the country will no doubt be a solution to the country’s food insecurity whose population is astonishing at 200 million.

The Minister said: “If we have laboratories like this in the city of Abuja and with a wide spread across the country, it will go a long way to assisting us in our quest to achieving food security, especially with the technology that makes the produce free from chemical pesticides and insecticides.

“I never know that there is a research and science laboratories here and what I saw here can be compared to anywhere in the advanced world.

“This is something that should be encouraged especially now that federal government is talking about reversing to agriculture as driver of the economy, as we cannot continue with the agriculture that we have been practicing in the last 4 decades.

Jubril, explained that China and India are able to feed its people because of the safe technology that they have developed on seed production and multiplication, adding both countries’ population is in the neighbourhood of 3 billion and yet they are not starving.

He expressed optimism that the ban on Nigeria’s agricultural produce by the European Union (EU), America and Japan because of the high carcinogenic content stressing will soon be reserved, stressing, so with a laboratory like this that has developed an antidote, it is probably going be within a short time that we will start exporting our food products outside the country again.”

However, he said it is important to have food sufficiency as no country can develop if it cannot feed its people adding that that is why President Muhammadu Buhari, set up the National Food Security Council (NFSC), with the Environment Ministry fully represented on that council.

In a remark, Mr. Thomas Chackunkal, said, Contec Global Agro is setting the pace in organic agriculture across the country with focus on developing sustainable agriculture with inclusive community programmes for all categories of farmers.

According to him, the company is committed to the concept of developing agriculture as a unique concept involving farmers and producers by providing agro solution and single window service providing farm inputs, support to the farmers with bio-safe fertilizers and training with the convergence of international farming practices designed to suite the local farming conditions.