Blessing Iruoma
Framers in Rivers State and a non-governmental organisation, Health Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), have called on the Federal Government to promote the practice of Agroecology across the nation.
The farmers also rejected the planting and consumption of Genetically Modified Organism(GMO) foods, saying that such practice is risky to the environment which includes soil degradation and destruction of biodiversity.
They noted that cultivating Genetically Engineered (GE) seeds is very expensive, expressed preferred choice of diversified planting system.
Speaking at a two-day farmers’ training on food and farming systems organised by HOMEF in Port Harcourt, the farmers from different parts of the state noted that the Agroecology method of farming suits them well as it is in line with nature and does not come with any known health implications.
Mrs. Namon Grace, a female farmer who spoke with journalists at the training, expressed: “We are rejecting this GMO in our place. We do not have lands. The little land we have has been leased to the oil companies and we are left with very limited lands.
“Also, the limited lands have been polluted. So, based on that, we are looking for ways to adapt mixed farming. So with the method of GMO where one specific crop must be cultivated, we do not think it suits us because we do not have any other land where we can plant another crop. So any little land we have, we plant all the crops that will sustain us and our family. So we do not need GMO and we do not see any benefit in it.”
A facilitator at the training, Prof Tatfeng Mirabeua, a lecturer of Medical laboratory science, at the Niger Delta University, Bayelsa state, noted that certain GMO will increase the number of food that will perish in the country.
He urge the government to do the first thing first by fixing infrastructure to facilitate the movement of food products from the farms to the market.
On the benefits of agroecology, the Programme Manager of HOMEF, Joyce Brown, noted that agroecology will help to divert the impact of climate change.
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Brown emphasised that it will help to mitigate the impact of climate change by retaining carbon in the soil and cutting down usage of fossil fuel, saying, unlike industrial farming that is the fifth producer of fossil fuel in the world that forms greenhouse gases that depletes the ozone layer.
She said: “Research has shown that currently, we use up to a fifth of fossil fuel energy in growing food. Now, agroecology, which is not dependent on fossil fuel, uses mostly renewable energy, so it will avoid that amount of fossil fuel that we use in producing food and you know that it is the exploration of oil and the process involved that releasee greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere which causes climate change.
“Also, agroecology helps in climate mitigation. There’s this fact that a lot of energies consumed are also released into the atmosphere in the process of producing inorganic fertilizers, for example making nitrogen fertilizer which releases methane into the atmosphere and it is even more harmful than carbon monoxide which causes climate change”.
