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Nigeria Prepares for Oil Shortage, Counting on Biotechnology to Boost Agriculture

Nigeria Prepares for Oil Shortage, Counting on Biotechnology to Boost Agriculture

Nigeria hopes to exploit biotechnology to help feed its growing population as the country looks to a future without oil.

“I think that for us, we’re a very pro-technology government. With our agriculture, there’s so much people to be fed, we have to use the best of technology; it’s not just the biological technology,” Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina told News24.

He said that as the country moved to expand its farming to a commercial enterprise, biotechnology would be employed to speed up food production.

“On the genetic side, we are very favourable to the use of biotechnology because we have a whole series of pests and diseases that biotechnology would allow us to fight.”

In the 1960s, Nigeria was a major agricultural producer, but after the discovery of oil, the country shifted to the resource and neglected agriculture.

Read more at news24.com