By Lekan Bilesanmi

To address poverty and unemployment in the country attention must shift from dependence on oil to biotrade, Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) and research  experts have advised.

Speaking at a roundtable on harnessing biological resources held at Nicon Luxury hotel, Abuja CBN said that Nigeria must embrace the practice in other parts of the world if the current problem of unemployment and poverty in the country were to be addressed.

The apex bank stressed that what it called agric by science was the vogue in the world today and was being relied upon not only for food stability but for stable economy by many countries, warning that Nigeria cannot play outside the new order.

In his paper, former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Murice Iwu, said the nation was losing billions of naira to non exploitation of biological resources.

He said: “We are losing billions of dollars to forests annually” .Iwu, who is the President of Bioresources Institute of Nigeria, Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme (BDCP), and InterCEDD, the organisers of the event, corroborated the position of the CBN that  unemployment and poverty in the country cannot be tackled unless focus is shifted to the utilisation of biological resources.

Participants at the roundtable were made up  several organisations in both the public and private sector. They include Federal Ministry of Science & Technology; Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development; Federal Ministry of Environment; Federal Ministry of Health; Federal Ministry of Trade & Investment.