IAR set to intensify artemesia, ask for N50 m CBN grant

The Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR) has promised to awake planting of Artemisia throughout the seasons for more availability to substitute its importation by the pharmaceutical companies just as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is being called to release the N50m drug development fund for backward integration production of the crop. This was disclosed during a paper presentation on Artemisia at the recently held 2021 Annual Research and Planning Meeting in Zaria.

Yakubu Adamu, the scientist who presented a paper on artemesia said the institute has been mandated to revive the plant for commercial availability to farmers for multiplications through planting round the year for price competitiveness in the international market, saying that CBN grant of N50m would be supportive in the mandate execution of its availability to end users.

According to him ‘’ the crop activity is presently been done on the farm stations in order to establish characterization of some assertions, and if the assertions are constant, then we can now start going through the process of breeding and now take them to the farmers’’ added that experimentation would determine quality of fertilizers to be used, and proper time to harvest the crop.