SHESTCO Moves To Boost Food Production

The SHEDA Science and Technology Complex (SHESTCO) plans to commercialise its slow-release nitrogen fertiliser to help boost agricultural production, according to the Director General, Prof. Sunday Thomas.

Thomas told our correspondent in Abuja that the council had successfully field-tested the fertiliser in the faculty of Agriculture, University of Abuja and was now set to commercialise.

He said that the commercialisation would require adequate supply of raw urea, the major raw material for the fertiliser as well as funds to facilitate the process.

He said: “We have done field trial; it has worked well. Normally when you have a product like this, your first trial is in what you call controlled atmosphere, that was done and it was successful.

“If we have the funding, we can do our pilot plans to move from it being a laboratory production because that is what you need if you are to produce it on a large scale.

“Part of the difficulty we have in commercialising science in Nigeria is that most of what we do as research institutes are at laboratory scales and there is that gap finding entrepreneurs that are willing to invest.”

He said that with funds, the complex would develop a pilot plan and expressing his confidence in the success of the fertiliser if commercialised.

He advocated that research findings from the establishment and all other institutes should be moved from the laboratories to a stage where they “become sufficiently attractive to entrepreneurs”.

Thomas disclosed that if the fertiliser was commercialised, it would move the council from being just a research and development council to an innovative council.

He said that it was the hope of the complex that a urea producing company would be providing it with urea for the commercialisation of the fertiliser.

Thomas further disclosed that with the slow-release fertiliser, farmers would apply the fertiliser once in a year as the fertiliser was designed to release nitrogen slowly all year round.

“There are actually two types of fertilisers, the one that is popular now at the complex is the slow-release nitrogen fertiliser; it was produced as a result of the need to solve an old problem.

“And the problem is that when you are using urea fertiliser, especially in the savanna region, you have to apply the fertiliser two or three times in a farming season,” he said.

He explained that the constant application was because when the conventioanal urea fertiliser “is applied into the soil, rain water dissolves it and leaches it away beyond the cereal’s roots before the plant is able to tap it.

“So we tried to produce a modified urea fertiliser that will not leach so easily and much more importantly, will be able to release the nitrogen that the plant needs slowly.

“Instead of adopting the biotechnological approach using microbes (micro organisms) we used a very simple thing that is: the urea fertiliser itself and maize cobs.”