- He highlighted that the Seed For Resilience initiative, established in 2021, aimed to optimize the NACGRAB genebank’s efficiency
The National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB) has projected an upcoming surge in food sufficiency and a decrease in food commodity prices across Nigeria.
Dr. Anthony Okere, the Acting Director of NACGRAB, made this assertion at the conclusion of the 2023 Technical Working Group (TWG) meeting on Seed For Resilience (SFR) held in collaboration with the Global Crop Diversity Trust (Crop Trust) in Ibadan.
He highlighted that the Seed For Resilience initiative, established in 2021, aimed to optimize the NACGRAB genebank’s efficiency and broaden the utilization of conserved genetic resources by farmers and other stakeholders in Nigeria.
Furthermore, Okere emphasized that this project played a pivotal role in exposing the diversity within crops like sorghum, cowpea, and others to farmers and users. The objective is to alleviate the impacts of climate change, enhance farmers’ productivity, and ensure food and nutritional security across Nigeria.
He said that the project was successful, based on feedbacks from farmers and other users that the good quality seeds planted this season yielded well in multiples, compared to year 2022.
“Farmers now feeling free to come to NACGRAB genebank to demand more diversity of materials that could help them to get higher production which in turn would lead to food sufficiency and price reduction in Nigeria soon.
“There are availability of quality seeds in NACGRAB genebank that farmers can plant and generate good yield due to success of this project.
” Various farmers can now dwell in more crops instead of one or two crops; this project has made it possible for farmers to plant diversity of quality seeds and generate good yields which in turn will lead to food and nutrition security in Nigeria,” Okere said.