University Don Wants FG to Drive Tree Planting Exercise

• NGO to Plant 2.5m Trees in Niger

By Laleye Dipo in Minna

A University Don Professor Akin Osunde has asked the Federal Government to drive the tree planting scheme in the country for it to achieve the desired results.

This is just as a Non Governmental Organisation NGO One Acre Fund Nigeria is to partner with communities in Niger state to plant 2.5m trees before the end of this year.

Professor Osunde, at the tree planting campaign piloted by the NGO at old Gurusu in the Shiroro local government of Niger state on Monday, said tthat the inability of the federal government to give the necessary support to the campaign had resulted in the programme not achieving the desired result.

Using Ethiopia where the National government backed its tree campaign programme, Professor Osunde of the Soil Science Department at the Federal University of Technology Minna said the government by the serious intervention was able to overcome desertification in that country within a short period.

He noted that if more efforts were put into tree planting across the length and breadth of the country with the support of both the federal and state governments, the issue of flooding will also be reduced to the barest minimum in the country.

He also charged tertiary Institutions to develop special and early maturing tree seeds that will be distributed across the country, saying such trees, apart from providing shades, will add to the nutrient of the soil thereby boosting agricultural production.

“Governments should support NGOs and government agencies to enable them achieve the desired results in there tree planting campaign programmes,” Professor Osunde said.

In his remarks the Deputy Country Director of One Acre Fund Nigeria Mr Sola Adeyemi disclosed that the organisation will collaborate with communities in Niger state to plant 2.5m trees before the end of the year saying 100 farmers will assist to achieve the objective.

Adeyemi said apart from tree planting the organisation had provided 33,000 farmers with improved seeds in three districts in Niger state; Lapai, Mokwa and Minna adding that the organisation has also begun the sale of fertilizer to farmers in the districts at highly reduced rates to boost food and cash crop production.

Mrs Zaynab Haruna, the ” Lead for Trees” department in the institution appealed to people in the urban and rural communities of the state and the country to cultivate the habit of planting trees saying “we cannot say you should not fell trees but when you bring down one tree plant three.”

Mrs Zaynab Haruna disclosed that in all the communities where the NGO is operating in the state the locals are being engaged to nurse the trees, thereby providing them with employment.