A former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Turner Isoun, has urged Nigerians to be comfortable with biotechnology and biosciences.

Isoun gave the advice in an address at the media fellowship training, organised for journalists by the Biosciences for Farming in Africa (B4FA), an international Non-Governmental Organisation.

He described biotechnology as the use of biological processes, organisms or systems to manufacture products intended to improve quality of human life.

He acknowledged that Nigeria still possessed enough land for farming but stressed that it was pertinent to exploit all other means of ensuring food security.

“Biotechnology is a very important aspect of a very big topic, which is biosciences, and Nigeria and indeed Africa should be comfortable with biosciences and biotechnology.

“In fact we should have a comparative and a competitive advantage in the area of bio resources and biotechnology and agricultural biotechnology.

“Africa still has over 60 per cent of the available farming areas: Nigeria still has some rain forest but we need to grow, we need to conserve and we need to exploit these resources with enlightened perspective,” Isoun said.

He said that the nation’s economy was growing at a good rate driven by oil and gas and a handful of other goods and services but stressed the need to tap into the bio driven economy.

“We are in the threshold of what some experts are now calling the bio economy: this is coming and it is going to be huge.

“That bio economy is going to include ensuring food sufficiency and food security,” he said.