Nigeria hopes to exploit biotechnology to help feed its growing population as the country looks to a future without oil.
“I think that for us, we’re a very pro-technology government. With our agriculture, there’s so much people to be fed, we have to use the best of technology; it’s not just the biological technology,” Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina told News24.
He said that as the country moved to expand its farming to a commercial enterprise, biotechnology would be employed to speed up food production.
“On the genetic side, we are very favourable to the use of biotechnology because we have a whole series of pests and diseases that biotechnology would allow us to fight.”
In the 1960s, Nigeria was a major agricultural producer, but after the discovery of oil, the country shifted to the resource and neglected agriculture.
Read more at news24.com