Agriculture is one of the most potent ways to alleviate poverty and create significant income streams for the poor people of the semi-arid tropics said Mr Philip Ikeazor, the Governing Board member of the Hyderabad-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). On the occasion of completing his second and final three-year term of the Board, he said ‘I have witnessed the giant strides and impact made by ICRISAT’s research work on the smallholder farmers in India and East Africa and some parts of West Africa.
I would like such collaborations to be adopted in Negeria.” Executive Director Corporate, Investment Banking and Treasury at Union Bank of Nigeria, Mr Ikeasor stressed the need to boost Nigeria’s groundnut production to export levels using the institute’s research expertise and partnerships. Mr Ikeazor said he was particularly keen on transferring the watershed irrigation technique piloted in India and the recent groundnut revolution in Malawi, which had seen a thriving fair trade export of improved groundnut to the UK. Nigeria was once the world’s leading groundnut exporters in the 1960s with the crop accounting for about 70 per cent of the country’s total export earnings. “Now it produces barely enough for local consumption and desperately needs to apply research that could eliminate aflatoxins from harvests and produce high yield export grade groundnuts,” he added. UNI