Prof. Victor Olowe a World Board Member of the International Society for Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR) has called on Organic Livestock producers to embrace oilseed cakes to curb production shortage in Africa.
Olowe said this during his online presentation on the Production of Oilseed Crops and Value Chain organised by Journalists Go Organic Initiative.
He said that one of the major constraints of organic livestock production in African countries is lack of organic feed, adding that 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 utilized.
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.
“The volume of organically produced soybean is less than 0.1 per cent of total world production, while the demand for organic soybean has been increasing gradually but steadily in the last decade’’.
The don listed some ways by which the opportunities provided by oilseeds as part of agricultural diversification can be maximised.
“Oilseeds have ready markets, and provide feed preparation for livestock as cake with high quality protein.
“On health benefits, soybean is an excellent blend of protein and fibre, a source of molybdenum, copper, manganese, phosphorus, iron, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B2, magnesium, Vitamin K and potassium.
“Sesame is grown mainly for its seed which contains 50-60 per cent oil and 19-25 per cent protein with antioxidant ligands’’.
He, however, admonished farmers to try sesame seeds on their farms because it is drought tolerant in case the rains cease early.
He said this way more farmers will enjoy bountiful harvests and other economic benefits of the seed.
