The Director, Federal Science Equipment Centre, Ijanikin, Lagos, Dr Yekini Ismail, says Nigeria is blessed with human and mineral resources enough to be self-sufficient in food production.
According to him, the rising food cost will be mostly reduced if Nigerians can heed the call by President Muhammadu Buhari to engage in farming as the necessary materials are readily available.
Ismail made the assertion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of a scientific-based institutions Entrepreneurial Workshop for its staff.
The ongoing Entrepreneurial Workshop is a partnership program between the Federal Science Equipment Centre and the School of Entrepreneurial Studies, Lagos State University of Education, Otto/Ijanikin.
The Entrepreneurial Workshop involves training in bread making, confectionaries, home-made soap and detergents and organic-based lotions using farm produce such as fruits and herb trees among others.
Ismail also described as faultless the comment by President Buhari on Nigeria’s self-sufficiency on food production.
NAN reports that President Buhari had in a radio programme with Tambarin Hausa TV Programme in Kano, said that Nigerians hadno reason to complain of hunger as there were abundant farmlands.
He also noted that God had blessed Nigeria with rains.
Ismail drew inference on entrepreneurial studies and its impacts on sustainable food production.
“The Federal Science Equipment Centre is a product of tripartite partnerships between Nigeria and United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
“The agreement is to develop our institution to a world-class center in the area of fabrication, maintenance, repairs of science equipment using locally-sourced materials.
“We also have the mandate of training the users of these equipment.
“Since our inception, we have made giant strides in fabricating locally made equipment that may have been imported.
“However, thinking out of the box, we noticed that we need training for our staff to get involved in entrepreneurial skills and not teaching other people on the subject alone,” he said.
Backing the call of the president, Ismail urged Nigerians to pay attention and take practical steps toward actualizing food sufficiency for the country.
“We need to be practical with the things that we have studied and not be abstract.
“And for us here, we have fabricated many machines that some of our people are struggling to get outside Nigeria.
“President Buhari is 100 per cent right on Nigeria’s food self-sufficiency, because he has travelled far and beyond to see what other countries are doing in terms of agriculture and foods that we can produce.
“We have countries that are not as big as a state in Nigeria; yet, they are not just growing their food, but producing for exportation.
“Nigeria has the land mass and we can also produce farm machineries.
“For us in this institution, we have been able to fabricate farm equipment such as cutlasses, hoes, harvesters and other simple agricultural equipment; we have also produced locally-made fertilizers as well,” he said.
Ismail said that to adequately address the problem of food shortage, agriculture should be taught as a part of entrepreneurial studies because of its relevance to food production.
“The entrepreneurial studies have opened our eyes so that we will not continue to rely on the government.
“This is because it involves how to make our people to be independent.
“We have the human capacity, market and population to consume our agricultural produce if we will pay attention to the sector, but instead our graduates are looking forward to work in offices.
“We have several arms in agriculture such as wildlife rearing animal husbandry, fishing to producing fertilizers which is one of the simplest agricultural produce.
“We have a mandate to train people on how to achieve these things if they are willing to take the call of the president seriously,” he said.
