Leadership (Abuja)
News Agency of Nigeria
13 October 2008
Director-General of National Bio-technology Development Agency (NABDA) Prof. Bamidele Solomon, said yesterday that biotechnology had the potential to address poverty and food insecurity in developing countries.
Solomon said this yesterday at a media interactive forum in Abuja.
Solomon said that the Agency was poised to deploy biotechnology solutions, to achieve collective aspirations for food security, poverty eradication, thriving small and medium-sized enterprises.
He said bio-technology which means the combination of techniques to modify products for the benefit of mankind, provided an excellent tool to increase food security in the nation.
He said the system was making impact in agriculture, health care, industries and environmental sectors, to make Nigeria a key global participant in the biotechnology revolution.
He said the agency had established a bio-resources development centre in Odi, Bayelsa where more than 500 unemployed youths were trained.
The director-general noted that the youths were trained in aquaculture, grass-cutter domestication and management technology, snail domestication and other bio enterprises.
Solomon said NABDA had assisted most of the trainees to set up medium scale bio-enterprises to enable them become self employed.
He said that the agency had embarked on grass-roots awareness workshop, to bring to the public the potentials of bio-technology in improving non-food uses of crops as veritable sources of industrial feed.
Solomon said that participants were drawn from governmental institutions, the academia, media, NGOs and farmers.
He said that the workshop had contributed to the emergence of thriving bio-enterprises.
"It is imperative for us to articulate a strategic media plan that would further promote awareness of the gains of biotechnology and increase medium-scale bio-enterprises.(NAN) .
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Leadership. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
