Organic Agriculture is key to end Food insecurity – Bishop Ajakaye

Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ekiti, Most Rev. Felix Ajakaye says organic agriculture is the key to end food insecurity in the country.

Bishop Ajakaye said this when stakeholders in organic agriculture under the auspices of Justice, Development and Peace Initiative, JDPI, of the Catholic Diocese of Ekiti paid him a courtesy visit in Ado-Ekiti on Monday.

According to him, there is need for Nigerians to engage in organic agriculture to end the persistent abuse on the environment.

While calling on the stakeholders to be consistent in the quest to promote organic agriculture, he looked forward to Ekiti State becoming a practical example to others in organic farming.

His words: “Thank you for accepting to serve in this regard. Organic agriculture is the key now and it has to be well-promoted. Personal interest is very important.

“If you are promoting organic agriculture, practical example is very important because if the leader doesn’t believe in what he or she is promoting, it becomes a failure.

“Let us make Ekiti, a practical example for other people to learn how we are carrying out our own organic agriculture. We have abused the environment for so long and with organic farming, the environment will be consoled and it’s all over the world that the environment is badly treated.

“In this country we tend to be more consumers and that’s why we keep hearing you should open the borders. The promotion of organic agriculture need the government to be actively involved.”

In his opening remarks, Director of JDPI Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Akingbade said the visit is to intimate the Bishop on the progress and what the stakeholders intend to achieve.

“We have approached them and had interactions with them and they accepted to be part of the crusade to promote organic agriculture in Ekiti State, in our schools, with the farmers and society at large focusing more in our relationship with the consumers and farmers. We want in the next one year, organic agriculture will be on the lips of everybody in our society.”

A Crop Scientist at the Ekiti State University, Prof. Olusola Longe said that there is an urgent need to involve the youths in various level of education to drive organic agriculture in the state.

He solicited for government’s intervention in the areas of funding and farming implements and tools to encourage organic agriculture aimed at ending food insecurity.

On his part, Kayode Bobade from the Agricultural Development Project in the Ministry of Agriculture urged the Bishop to use his office and appeal to the state government for a working tractor and make provisions for a market space where organic produce can be displayed.

Meanwhile, the stakeholders had embarked on a visit to the State Ministries of Agriculture and Education in order to seek for more collaboration in the awareness creation campaign on organic Agriculture in the State.

At the meeting, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Agriculture Hon. Ebenezer Boluwatife promised his maximum support to the crusade and advised that the farmers should be trained and certified as organic farmers, which will make them to have an edge over other farmers.