By Olu Benjamin
Health Of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) has trained about 100 grassroots farmers in 15 states on agroecology in a bid to encourage them to adopt organic farming methods.
Mr Cadmus Enade, Programme Manager for Communities and Culture, HOMEF made this known to newsmen on the sidelines of a one day Agroecology practical training held in Keffi local government area of Nasarawa state on Thursday.
According to Enade, agroecology is a farming system in line with nature, promotes food sovereignty and sufficiency and safer than Generically Modified Organisms (GMOs) system of farming which is involvement of harmful chemicals in production of crops.
“We have overtime discovered that GMO is harmful to the health and well-being of people, the environment, animals and the biodiversity around.
“So this training is for community farmers on how best they can use agroecology practices to enhance their food production and their livelihoods because agroecology is not just a practice but also a scientific way of producing safe food and making it sufficient for farmers.
“It involves using organic produce, organic items that you can find around your environment. It also means producing crops without any form of chemical involvement, usage. So we are encouraging local farming systems,” he said.
Enade who revealed that the method also helps with climate change adaptations added despite government approval of some genetically modified crops and seeds, the introduction of GMOs have resulted in the increase in ailments and diseases.
“We have also seen biodiversity lost as a result of people engaging in the use of genetically modified seeds in their farms. As we speak we have genetically modified foods in our food shelves in Nigeria today.
“So we are begging the government to go back to the drawing board and take a closer look at what they introduced into the country, the kind of seeds they approved and give to farmers to plant,” he said.
He urged farmers to come together and put their seeds together by putting up a natural seeds bank that will protect their seeds variety.
He said aside rural farmers from Nasarawa state, other participants were also drawn from other states such as Kano, Kwara, Sokoto, Kaduna, Bauchi and Oyo states among others.
In an interview, Dr Yunusa Halidu, National Secretary, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) said the training is apt and timely and assured that knowledge gotten from the training would be cascaded to rural farmers who were unable to come for the training.
“Conventional and traditional way of farming is the way to go. It is using local way of farming, reserving your feeds. Instead of using all these chemical fertilizer, you can use your local fertilizer like the cow dung, poultry dung and other things that you can use to conserve your environment,” he said.
Also speaking, Mrs Funke Ojomu, a representative of Farmers Development Union in Kwara state also admitted that the training has been helpful and will step down the training to members of union when she gets back to Kwara state.
…END.