A non-governmental organization (NGO) says it has trained 50 Rivers farmers on the production of bio-pesticides, organic pesticides, and bio-fertilizers.
The NGO, called Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), said the initiative was essentially to end the hazardous effect of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on the environment.
The HOMEF Director of Programmes, Joyce Brown, disclosed this on Friday at a special training organized for farmers in Kegbara-Dere in the Gokana Local Government Area of the state.
Brown said that the programme was designed to teach farmers how to produce and use organic fertilizers against inorganic pesticides and fertilizers, which have serious implications for human and environmental health as well as the economy of the country.
She said that recent reports showed that some farm produce in the country was being rejected on the international market due to excessive use of pesticides.
“We taught farmers how to make use of the nim plant, nim oil, chilly pepper, and garlic to make bio-pesticides.
“We also taught them how to make use of cow dung, cow urine, bananas, and healthy soil to make biofertilizers.
“We are trying to help our farmers produce food of optimum quality as well as get enough food for our growing population because the common narrative is that Nigerians are hungry, so we need to produce a lot more food.
Brown further said that agro-ecology and the use of organic agriculture focus on improving soil health, better productivity, and healthy food.
She expressed worry over the GMO hazardous pesticide and called on the Federal Government to ban its use and save farmers from deadly diseases, especially those found in rural areas.
She said, “The government needs to take a stand against GMOs.
“We call for their ban because research has shown that more than 46 percent of registered pesticides in the country are linked to cancer and other diseases.
“A lot of illnesses today are linked to the food that we consume, in addition to environmental pollution.
“So, healthy food would reduce some of those public health issues that we are battling with today.
“From our interaction with farmers across the country, they keep telling us that they do not need GMOs.
“What they need is support in terms of extension services.
“Show them how to do agriculture in a way that works with their local environment and agro-ecology.
“They called on the government to support them by investing in agro-ecology and helping them to do more work in line with nature,” Brown said.
She said that the agro-ecology system helps to mitigate the impact of climate change because it does not depend on fossil fuels.
“It helps farms to be resilient to climate change, while industrial agriculture depends on fossil fuels and releases a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” she said.
The training facilitator and Farm Manager, Operations of Be The Help Foundation, Mr. Chukwu Agozirim, said the programme was also to sensitize the farmers about the agro-ecology system of farming, which is different from the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
“Farmers have been taught how to produce organic fertilizers and organic pesticides and shown how to increase their soil nutrients through efficiency of water and carbon and agro-forestry because this forestry we are talking about is an ancient system of farming, but we are modernizing it,” Agozirim said.
Also, the Director of Citizens Resource Services, Mr. Erabanabari Kobah, commended HOMEF for bringing knowledge to the grassroots.
Kobah said that the training was necessary as the Kegbara-Dere Community and Ogoni environment had been devastated as a result of oil exploration, to the extent that farm produce and farm income were dwindling.
He regretted that the people were getting poorer and there was a vicious circle of poverty in the area, adding that farmers continued to toil on their farms with little to show.
“We think that it’s important if they are sensitized to some measures they can adopt towards improving their crop yields,” he said.
Kobah urged the government to partner with NGOs, like HOMEF, to extend the training to more farmers to enable them to improve their farming methods locally.
One of the trained farmers, Mrs. Silvian Paanwi, thanked HOMEF for the training and promised that she would deploy the knowledge acquired judiciously.
