By Demola Akinyemi, Ilorin

Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara state has expressed the determination of his administration to collaborate with relevant stakeholders towards generating more nutritional content that would make the lives of the people better and longer.

The governor said this on Thursday on the sideline of the unveiling ceremony of dehydrated Soya beans Tofu popularly known as “Beske” to the public to boost protein consumption, ensure the longer life of its consumers and also create enduring business opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI) in partnership with the Centre for African Leaders of Agriculture had successfully trained Thirty-Nine women to take off the revolution of dehydrated Tofu skills, popularly known as “Beske” to the outside world.

Representing the governor at the event Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mrs.Oloruntoyosi Thomas, commended the stakeholders, the Ministry and other participants for their collaboration, particularly the women for their perseverance towards acquiring the skills saying that its yielding positive result.

“We appreciate you for what you have done but we can do more with you.Let’s make partnership, collaboration and cooperation our watchwords .We’ll partner with you to generate more nutritional contents that will make our lives better and longer.

“Let’s be in this together,let’s do it bigger and better ,you ain’t seen anything yet,well support you more.

“The support, We’ll give you will last you for a lifetime,and you’ll even transfer it to your children and even the unborn ones too.”

The governor continued,”we’ll always empower our women,not just to help themselves but help their children and their communities too, such that when they’re making millions from the skills acquired,they won’t be attracted by any job offer from government or anywhere .

“We’ll partner with you to generate more nutritional contents that will make our lives better and longer .”the governor said.

One of the Five team members of the project, an Assistant Director in NSPRI Dr Yunis Bamisaye who spoke with journalists at the event said said that,” the program is about unveiling our dehydrated Soya bean Tofu and also creating a business pace to the beneficiaries,we are well seated with our investors .”

“We want people to know that there’s something called dehydrated Tofu.The common name is BESKE,this one has been dehydrated,to have a longer shelf life.Instead of the few days for the common ones,the dehydrated one can last six months on the shelf .”she said.

Bamisaye added ,”we are also doing this for the purpose of the rich,you know that it’s not everyone that would stop those selling BESKE inside the bucket on the roads and buy it,the rich will not do that.But with this new product,and well packaged,,it would be available at various supermarkets for sale.

“The fact is ,plant based meat is better than animals based meat because its enriched with amino acids, protein .This is perfectly good to reduce collestrol in the body, which is what everyone is aiming at,to live longer life and better because nobody wants to die young..So, this is an enriched replacement.”she stressed .

She recalled that,”to come out with this product,we had a training where we did product development,it went through a lot of rigorous stages from stage one to shelf life,we just concluded it.We had 39 beneficiaries ,the one’s that are very serious are 14.

“We have come here to make the public aware so that with further collaboration from the government the skills could be replicated such that the products will spread through Kwara and Nigeria and our women and other interested entrepreneurs would be making millions from it.”