A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Health Of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has trained about 100 grassroots farmers in 15 states in agroecology to encourage them to adopt organic farming methods.
HOMEF’s programme manager for communities and culture, Mr Cadmus Enade, made this known on the sidelines of an agroecology training held in Keffi local government area of Nasarawa State.
According to Enade, agroecology is a farming system in line with nature, promotes food sovereignty and sufficiency and safer than Generically Modified Organisms (GMOs) system of farming which is involvement of harmful chemicals in production of crops.
“We have overtime discovered that GMO is harmful to the health and well-being of people, the environment, animals and the biodiversity around.
“So this training is for community farmers on how best they can use agroecology practices to enhance their food production and their livelihoods because agroecology is not just a practice but also a scientific way of producing safe food and making it sufficient for farmers.
“It involves using organic produce, organic items that you can find around your environment. It also means producing crops without any form of chemical involvement, usage. So we are encouraging local farming systems,” he said.
He added that the method also helps with climate change adaptations, noting that despite government approval of some genetically modified crops and seeds, the introduction of GMOs has resulted in an increase in ailments and diseases.
“We have also seen biodiversity lost due to people engaging in using genetically modified seeds in their farms. As we speak we have genetically modified foods in our food shelves in Nigeria today.
“So we are begging the government to go back to the drawing board and take a closer look at what they introduced into the country, the kind of seeds they approved and give to farmers to plant,” he said.
He said aside rural farmers from Nasarawa state, other participants were also drawn from other states such as Kano, Kwara, Sokoto, Kaduna, Bauchi and Oyo states among others.
In an interview, the National Secretary, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) Dr Yunusa Halidu, said the training was apt and timely and assured that knowledge gotten from the training would be cascaded to rural farmers who were unable to come for the training.
Also speaking, Mrs Funke Ojomu, a representative of Farmers Development Union in Kwara State also admitted that the training had been helpful and would step down the training to members of union when she gets back to Kwara.