NAPRI |
Professor Joshua T. Amodu is a Feed and Nutrition specialist at the
National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI) Zaria. In the wake of grazing reserve and grass importation controversy Food farm news sought him out to know the reaction of NAPRI on the issue. He was unambiguous in dissociating NAPRI from the grass controversy. Excerpts.
Could you introduce yourself, Prof?
Professor Joshua T. Amodu is my name, Head, Feed and Nutrition Research Programme,
National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI) Zaria, I am a forage
specialist with a book written on Stylosanthese
in Africa which is a promising legume crop, and the book was published in 2004.
What is the involvement of your
institute in the importation of grass seeds by the FMARD from Cameroon?
From what my
boss told me, there was a time they wanted to import Alfalfa which is a
temperate crop, but sometimes can be sub- tropical crop, for example in India
where they have similar climate with Africa, but not the whole of India are
tropical as there is a section of the country that is very hot, and there you
find a whole lot of black people.
This Alfalfa can be well grown in temperate
region as you can cut it seven to eight times, but it can only perform well in
temperate region but not in the tropical region, like ours in Nigeria. So
introducing this particular specie into Nigeria will create problem. Australia
is one of the three countries that have very good seed varieties adaptable to
Nigeria as the country has a sound agricultural policy programme.
They have varieties
of forage species like (1) Stylosanthese-hamata,
Curtivar veramo and (2) Stylosanthese
guianesis (Curtivar cook). The ‘curtival ‘means the crop is very cultivable
in the region, and that is why the seed is named after the region, which is
Veramo, just like Cook is a region that is well adaptable to stylosanthese
curtival cook. So the seeds are named after the regions meaning they are
persistent in the regions. However these two seeds from Australia were
introduced to Nigeria several years ago, exactly in the early 1970s, and they were
found to be producing very well. (I will take you to our seed store to see what
we have)They have adapted well, all over the country even in all ecologies of
the country where they have been tried like Guinea Savannah from Mokwa in Niger
state to Kaduna as well as in the forest region of the southwest and even do
well in Sudan.
What I am trying to say is that these two varieties of seeds can
be planted well in all the ecological zones of Nigeria, except Sahel. In the introduction
plot in this Institute, we have tried these seeds to ascertain the resistance
traits to persist through laboratory analysis. Also during the agronomic
studies, we do different cuttings to see when it will be good or best for the
animals. So these are the things that must be considered before one can bring
seeds into the country, in order to avoid bringing in diseases.
So somebody
cannot just bring any crop into the country without all these scientific
process that I have mentioned. First you have to see whether it can be able to
adapt as we have screened over 500 species of forages in Shika, NAPRI. Let me
tell you, this place in 1972 used to be
called the grassland i.e this Shika, before it was renamed NAPRI in 1976, and
since that time we have had different of
departments and units in the Institute like Forage Research Programme, Dairy
Research Programme, Investors System Research Programme.
These are programme
and units we have here. Our own is Feed and Nutrition, but usually, it used to
be forage. My work and experience in forage research have made Australia
government to ask me to write on Animal Nutrition which was published in 2004.
So we have all it takes to produce in enough grass for cattle in Nigeria as
many states have been coming here to buy grasses for multiplication.
Lack of
fund has made some of our equipment become obsolete, and this is the area
government can support us so as to assist us to full capacity production for
more animal feeds production in the country.
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