By Abdallah el-Kurebe,Sokoto
President of National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN), Alhaji Hamma Ali Kwajaffa has called on the National Assembly to speed up the passage of Biosafety Bill before the 2015 general elections.
He made the appeal in Abuja at the Cotton Value Chain Forum organised by Monsanto Seed Company and NACOTAN on Monday. The theme of the Forum is “Positioning Nigeria’s Cotton Industry Value Chain for Economic Transformation.”
Kwajaffa observed that looking at Burkina Faso’s agriculture sector, which has been dominated by the cotton segment, “Nigeria must get the Biosafety Bill before the elections if it must be globally competitive and economically remunerative for our farmers.”
He stressed that as Nigerian farmers were anxious to have the BT Cotton in other to compete with other farmers in African, so also were scientists eager to see the results of their research works.
Reaffirming NACOTAN’s position, Director General of National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Prof. Lucy Ogbadu said that Nigeria must embrace biotechnology in order to move ahead. “Let’s key into Biotech and move from the present state of development,” she said.
Prof. Ogbadu added that at the present time when oil prices were dwindling, the country needed to diversify from oil into agriculture for enhanced economic development.
Among those that attended the Forum included members of National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN); Ginnery Association of Nigeria; African Journalists Network for Agriculture (AJNA; officials from National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA); National Seed Council, among others.
