Journalists List Benefits Of Biosciences

Participants at the ongoing Biosciences for Farming in Africa (B4FA) training programme have underscored the need to educate farmers on the advantages of using biosciences for farming.

Bioscience is the use of living systems and organisms to develop useful products and it is usually deployed in agriculture, food and medicine production.

The concept encompasses a wide range of procedures for modifying living organisms according to human purposes.

A cross-section of the journalists, who are also participants in the ongoing training recently in Ibadan observed that farmers needed to be aware of how biosciences could help improve their yields.

Speaking with The Tide Correspondent  Miss Tina Armstrong, a presenter on Radio Nigeria, said she would educate farmers on how improved hybrid seeds and plants could add value to their produce.

She argued that bioscience could promote a better understanding of the available options for improving agricultural productivity in Africa.

Armstrong recalled that the same mechanism was developed in the 1990s to improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in Thailand.

She observed that little was known about the small-scale farmers’ understanding of biosciences for farming in Nigeria.

Another Journalist, Alhaji Lawan Bagwai, a presenter on Kano State Radio Corporation (KSRC), noted that biosciences offered many regions in Africa an opportunity to produce surplus food.

According to him, without biosciences research in Africa, agriculture would face a difficult future.

He added that this was the reason why small-scale farmers must be well informed on using biosciences for farming.