Modupe Gbadeyanka
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Muhammad Abubakar, is expected to be at the second edition of the Olam Green Land Webinar Series.
The event themed Rethinking wheat farming in Nigeria; Seeds, Research and Partnerships is slated for November 24, 2021, and is organised by Olam, an agribusiness conglomerate and parent company of Crown Flour Mill Limited.
Mr Abubakar is to grace the industry-wide consultative programme as a special guest, while the former manager of the Agricultural Value Chains Programme in Oromia, Ethiopia, Tiberio Chiari, is the keynote speaker, with a senior scientist at the Senegalese Institute for Agricultural Research (ISRA), Sall Amadou Tidiane, as the guest speaker.
The panellists for the virtual event are Mr Stephen Ambore, wheat champion, Central Bank of Nigeria; Mr Munir Babba Dan Agundi, Chairman, House Committee on Agricultural Colleges and Institutions; Mrs Karima Babangida, Director, Federal Department of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD); and Mr Salim Saleh Muhammad, National President, Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria (WFAN).
Others include Ms Sarah Hubber, Head of Wheat Development Programme, Flour Milling Association of Nigeria (FMAN); Dr Alhassan Bibinu, Executive Director, Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI); Dr Zakari Turaki, Director of Research, LCRI; Dr Kachalla Kyari Mala, Project Lead Researcher/Principal Research Officer, LCRI; and Dr Filippo Bassi, Project Scientist/ Senior Scientist, International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA).
The Managing Director of Crown Flour, Mr Ashish Pande, expressed the commitment of Olam “to helping Nigeria achieve food production self-sufficiency in the agricultural sector.”
“The second edition of the webinar is coming on the heels of extensive research that culminated in the launch of our N300 million ($750,000) 10-year community-based seed enterprises project aimed at fostering Nigeria’s wheat production capabilities,” he added.
“By focusing conversations on critical areas of research, development of suitable seed varieties and strategic partnerships, it is possible to accelerate the local wheat production capacity and remove the bottlenecks in local production,” he further said.
Mr Pande noted that, “The move is critical at this moment as the efforts will ultimately strengthen the nation’s food security position, sustain the creation of jobs by the wheat value chain and help achieve the targeted agriculture-led economic development agenda of the federal government.”
