A Professor of Soil Fertility, Olugbenga Adeoluwa, on Wednesday, urged Nigerians to embrace home and backyard gardening in order to address food crisis in the country.
Adeoluwa reiterated the need to train university graduates on organic and agroecology food production to tackle food insecurity and promote wellness.
The professor made the call during the opening of the Training on Entrepreneurship in Organic and Agroecology: Co-creating Jobs for University Graduates was in Ibadan.
Co-Producing Knowledge on Sustainable Growth through Service Learning Pedagogy between African and European HEIs Project was focused on providing students with hands-on training on organic and agroecology farming for students.
Adeoluwa, the Principal Investigator of the COPAFEU project sponsored by the European Union on Wednesday at the opening of the training underscored the need to promote health alongside food production.
”People should be farming at home to address food insecurity. I do the same thing at home. Let Nigerians do that so that they can grow what they eat”, the professor.
According to him, the University of Ibadan is training the students real practical experience on farming and entrepreneurial skills for a period of six months.
“The goal is not just to have crop of students with theoretical knowledge on agriculture and value-chain but they see agriculture as business,” Adeoluwa said.
He noted that there was the need to have more people producing organic and agroecological food.
“The demand for safe food has been on the increase in Nigeria hence the need to create more awareness on its benefits as the market is increasing as well as demand.
“And we hope that with this training, starting with a cohort of 30 students and we will have three cohorts in a year, meaning that 90 students would be trained who will produce organic foods.
“They can also raise out-growers and train them to produce food for them and this can increase availability of food in our country.
“This will not just address food insecurity in our country but it will also ensured that we have access to healthy food,” Adeoluwa said.
He enjoined every Nigerian to take to backyard farming and grow vegetables in bags or plastic as short-term measure to mitigate the present food scarcity.
Also, the Dean Faculty of Agriculture, UI, Prof. Andrew Omojola represented by Prof. Rasheed Awodoyin said the significance of training was to align with the nature.
“Doing things in the natural way; producing food in healthy way and eating healthy food would sustain our wellbeing and that is the way to go,” Omojola said.
Prof. Kolapo Oluwasemire, the Head of Department, Soil Resources Management, UI, said the training was to correct an anomaly which is that students who studied agriculture don’t practice it upon graduation from school.
According to him, the training will also correct the misconceptions about agriculture and open opportunities the students can take in the value chain.
Also, the Director of University of Ibadan Health Services, Dr Ronke Ajav stated that the university has embraced one health as being propagated by the WHO.
According to her, the university has a project which will ensure students and staff members eat organic food and exercise so as to promote welwellness
In an interview, Chairman, Board of Directors, AB Agrotech Limited, Mr Gbenro Abraham said the company would partner with UI to train students on organic agriculture which is the future to desire.
“Organic agriculture is trending now if we want to live healthy and to live long,” Abraham said.
