Experts call for enhanced facility to avoid Genetic Resources extinction

NACGRAB  assures on gene bank

Over 200 science experts that converged across the globe at the recently organized summit and conference on Genetic Resources (GR) conservation have raised concern on the need to fortified facilities that will prevent losses of valuable animals and plants materials for the future food security at all levels in view of increasing population growth and climate change impact on the biodiversity of vegetations.

This was one of the key points arrived at the Moorplantation, Ibadan venue of the conference on ‘’ Promoting Sustainable Conservation and Utilization of Genetic Resources for Food Security in Nigeria’’ held on 23-24 March 2021 physically and through virtual zoom.

 

Speaker after speaker emphasized the need why National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB) must be more financially supported and empowered to carry out its conservation mandates in partnership with all other research institutions, universities and local farmers, saying this would rescue extinction of animals and plants germplasms in case of any eventuality that could hinder our food security for the future generation.

In his presentation, the Director of NextGen Cassava Project, Prof. Chiedozie Egesi said there is need for actionable preparedness in view of population growth with propensity to be doubled according to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projection by 2050 in Nigeria, saying that the climate change impacts is not sparing our biodiversity as 75% of plant varietal had been lost in the last 100 years with land cultivations being lost to construction, hence lost of more genetic resources.

Prof. Egesi emphasized the need for nations of the world to interchange with one another the new gene improvement in order to ensure global food security, saying for example Nigeria’s cassava has been fortified with other nations’ germplasm as only 15 out of 195 rice cultivars are indigenous.

He pointed that close to one million animals and plant species are currently faced with threat of extinction, but added that only 12 crops and 5 animal species provided 75% of the total world needs in food as he concluded that concerted effort to conserve and utilize genetic resources required investments by Government and the private sector.  Stressed that Nigeria has an opportunity to use modern tools and trained human resources to explore, conserve, deploy and utilize her rich genetic resources.

The Executive Secretary (ES), Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) Prof. Garba Sharubutu through zoom expressed concern for the gradual disappearing of our agricultural accessions which might lead to extinction of our plants and animal species, saying most of the planting materials are mostly imported, reason being to underfunding of Research Institutes with many not able to maintain species in their domiciled ecology.

Sharubutu who hinted the preparedness of Islamic Bank to establish a gene bank in Nigeria for cassava germplasm conservations, advocated for adequate funding and timely release of fund to Research Institutes with constant training of breeders, and provision of efficient facilities, just as he posited the need to evaluate the activities of the institutes with regards to their infrastructure cum facilities.

 The Nigeria, Country representative,  ICRISAT Dr. Hakeem Ajeigbe through his zoom discussion on the paper ‘’ Impact of Climate Change on Cereal genetic resources conversation for Food and Agriculture’’ pondered on the challenges of climate change saying it was one of the major threats to agricultural biodiversity through increasing genetic erosion of landraces and species in the wild.

Ajeigbe pointed that vagaries of climate change had resulted to great loss of land suitable for cultivation of wide range of crops in Sub-Saharan Africa, Caribbean, India and other continents of the world, saying ‘’ it is important to understand the impact of climate change on genetic resources, and how agriculture can contribute to its mitigation through reducing greenhouses gases towards minimizing environmental hazards in a variety of ways with improved crops and grazing management that give restoration to organic soils and degraded lands’’

The ICRISAT representative pointed that crops like millet, sorghum, rice and maize in Nigeria historically stand as the most important staple food, hence the increasing high need of their genetic resources for conservation to meet the current and future crop improvement programs through provision of character traits to meet the challenges of adapting to new varieties especially in the semi-arid zones.

Prof. S.S I Omeje, from Animal Science Department Delta State University Asaba said that the last few years of animal conservation management has been of great concern, but pointed that feeding animals and chicken twice a day would encourage their return to homes and checkmated their being roamed away.

Prof. Omeje pointed that our indigenous chicken had a wide adaptable traits that cannot be localized to Nigeria alone, but stressed the need for global best practices for keeping them.

In his paper presentation, Dr. Olabode Olufeagbe, Federal University of Agriculture, Markurdi stated that fish genetic resources enabled adaptation well in the cold weather, adding there are lot of fishes’ resources in Africa that can be domesticated if they were properly preserved in their natural habitats without being endangered like is found in Argungun, Kebbi State.

He also mentioned the need for artificial method of keep the fish species from extinction, saying Africa had 13,400 different species from the world total of 19,056 that must be preserved to ensure present and future food security.

Responding to alertness of  NACGRAB to the keeping of registered and released improved varieties, the Director/ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Centre, Dr. Sunday Aladele assured  participants that Nigeria through NACGRAB has successfully ensured safety duplicate samples of some of its genetic resources,  which are kept in different part of the world against disaster and other unforeseen circumstances.

Dr. Aladele pointed that the germplasm are both secured and will be in good condition for over 100 years, adding that over 200 accessions of sorghum and pearl millet from Nigeria are duplicated in ICRISAT Sahelian Centre in Niger Republic.

He went further to say 124 Cowpea accessions are duplicated in IITA genebank at its Headquarters in Nigeria with 108 sorghum, 124 cowpea and 167 accessions of pearl millet duplicate samples being kept in Svalbard world seed vault in Norway for long term security just as there were 161 accessions of wild crops related of Nigeria collections duplicated in Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, UK.