Former President Olusegun Obasanjo … declared that unless innovative advances such as biotechnology are achieved in agriculture, global efforts at ending hunger would remain a mirage.
Obasanjo, who observed that the world’s population is estimated to reach about 9.7 billion by 2050, noted that more land would need to be cultivated to feed the world’s teeming population, adding “if agricultural yields stay the same, we would need to cultivate more than double the present amount of land to feed that population. That’s 82% of our total land area on earth”.
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Obasanjo, also noted that biotechnology has the potential to increase agricultural productivity, enhance food security, develop a better health care delivery system, boost an efficient industrial development process for transforming raw materials and detoxifying hazardous wastes, reduce mortality rates, move agriculture away from a dependence on chemical inputs and help to reduce environmental problems.
He urged the government to encourage scientific incursion into agriculture via policy measures specifically designed to encourage research and development as well as the adoption of new technologies.
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