By Steve Oko

National Root Crop Research Institute, NRCRI, Umudike, Abia State, has said it would soon release improved cassava variety as part of the effort to boost food production.

This is coming about a decade after the research institute developed Vitamin A-rich cassava variety.

NRCRI Executive Director, Professor Chidozie Egesi, gave the hint in a remark at one-day training of Abia farmers on the control of cassava pests and diseases.

The training, held at Kolping Society Umuahia, was organized by Izu Blessed Agricultural Training and Investment ltd, a non-governmental organization.

Egesi, represented by the Coordinator, Farming Systems Research Programme, Dr. Innocent Onyekwere, said the innovation was aimed at improving the nutritional value of cassava which is a staple food in the country.

He said the institute now has 54 improved cassava varieties and urged farmers in the South East region to always take advantage of the presence of the institute to get the latest and more productive varieties of root crops.

Lamenting the devastating effects of pests and diseases to crops, the ED alerted of a certain cassava disease currently in East Africa but said efforts were on to prevent it from spreading to Nigeria.

In his remarks, the Director of the NGO, Emmanuel Nwakpa, said the training was part of the group’s contribution to the efforts towards boosting agriculture and food security in the state.

He further noted that the training which is part of the NGO’s corporate social responsibility, “will afford participants the opportunity to watch the experts discuss some of the most prevalent pests and diseases of cassava and demonstrate the use of manual knapsack for their control”.

A co-Director of the NGO, Gabriel Okonkwo, said they were motivated to embark on training farmers because of the compelling need to revive agriculture both for job creation and food security.

Flagging off the training, Commissioner for Agriculture, Abia State, Professor Monica Ironkwe, regretted that the spirit of agric revolution championed by the late Premier of the Eastern Region, Dr. Michael Okpara, had been allowed to die by successive Governments which only paid lip services to agriculture.

She said that a conscious and quick return to agriculture remained the fastest recovery therapy to Nigeria’s economic woes.

“We need to pay attention to farming because the availability of food solves a lot of problems in society”, she said.

Free knapsack sprayers were distributed to participants as part of empowerment by the NGO.