Agriculture a potent way to alleviate poverty: Ikeazor

HYDERABAD: Agriculture
is one of the most potent
ways to alleviate poverty
and create signifi cant
income streams for the poor
people of the semi-arid tropics
said Philip Ikeazor, the
Governing Board member
of the Hyderabad-based International
Crops Research
Institute for the Semi-Arid
Tropics (ICRISAT).
On the occasion of completing
his second and fi -
nal three-year term of the
Board, he said ‘I have witnessed
the giant strides and
impact made by ICRISAT’s
research work on the smallholder
farmers in India and
East Africa and some parts
of West Africa.
I would like such collaborations
to be adopted in Negeria.”
Executive Director Corporate,
Investment Banking
and Treasury at Union Bank
of Nigeria, Ikeasor stressed
the need to boost Nigeria’s
groundnut production to
export levels using the institute’s
research expertise and
partnerships.
Ikeazor said he was particularly
keen on transferring
the watershed irrigation
technique piloted in India
and the recent groundnut
revolution in Malawi, which
had seen a thriving fair trade
export of improved groundnut
to the UK.
Nigeria was once the
world’s leading groundnut
exporters in the 1960s
with the crop accounting
for about 70 per cent of
the countries total export
earnings. “Now it produces
barely enough for local consumption
and desperately
needs to apply research that
could eliminate afl atoxins
from harvests and produce
high yield export grade
groundnuts,” he added.