 The world population is expected to grow by over a third, or 2.3 billion people between 2000 and 2050, and nearly all of this growth is forecasted to take place in the developing countries, among which South Saharan Africa's population, such as Nigeria, is expected to grow the fastest. Nigeria's agricultural sector is faced with so many challenges from time past which have led to the current food crisis, but government policies to encourage organic farming alone is not enough to meet the immediate diet and food demand of the highly-increasing populace. Hence the need to employ modern technology, i.e. biotechnology, to boost food production in Nigeria. Now, boosting food production through biotechnology is our focus today. Welcome to Business Insight and Plus TV Africa. I am Justin Acadone. At the Federal Government's approval of $328.87 million railway consultancy services, Federal Account Allocation Committee among others rounded up Business Nigeria for this week. Take a look. The Federal Executive Council, presided over by President Mohamed Bwari, has approved $115.4 billion for the dualization of the proposed Kano-Kanzure-Kongolam Highway and Kastena State from single-carriage-way to a dual-carriage-way. Minister of Works and Housing, Baba Tudefashula, who disclosed this to State House correspondents after the council meeting explained that the project, which covers 131.4 kilometers, would be completed in 48 months. The Federal Account Allocation Committee shared a total of $8.16 trillion, among the three tiers of government, in 2021. However, data from the Median Temp expenditure framework and physical strategy paper for 2022-2024 shows that amount budgeted to be disbursed to the three tiers of government during the 2021 fiscal year was $8.43 trillion. This resulted in an allocation shortfall of $217 billion during the period under the review. The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has begun the re-certification of Lagos and Abuja Airports. The Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Captain Noho Musa, has said this. As a result, he said inspectors of the regulatory agencies had begun a series of regular meetings with the officials of the Federal Airport Authorities of Nigeria, with a view to ensuring that open items discovered are closed. Musa disclosed that technical inspections of the airports were done last year to ascertain some identified gaps and that actions plans were expected to be developed. Nigeria was once more unable to meet its oil production allocation, but the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, in January. The country was only able to pump 1.46 million barrels per day of the expected 1.683 million PPD in January. Although it achieved an improvement of 50,000 PPD on its 1.41 million PPD production in December 2021, the Africa continent's biggest oil producer remained far from meeting its target. Governor of Central Bangodwin, Mehfile, has flagged off the Project 100-400 initiative from the CBN geared towards increasing productivity and wealth creation for the economy. Mr. Mehfile said a total of 28 companies whose proposals have been duly screened were awarded this funding opportunity to the tune of 23.2 billion Naira. Welcome back, that was Business Roundup for This Week. Agricultural experts have recommended that the government should be more proactive in using science, technology and innovation, especially about technology, to address food security challenges facing the continent. Hence, there has been increased campaign for biotechnology. We're now being joined by the Deputy Director of National Biotechnology Development Agency that is NABDA, Dr. Rose Guidado. Many thanks for joining us, Dr. Guidado. Let's just dive straight into it right now. For those who might not really know, break it down when we talk about biotechnology, specifically if you're talking about agriculture, what does that really mean? When you're talking about biotechnology, you're not just talking about agriculture. Biotechnology is also used in other sectors of the economy, in the era of medicine, for better medicines and cheaper medicines, in the era of environment, for cleaning up the environment, for ripping the environment of pollution and all this, and in the era of industry. So I think about four different sectors, aggregate, environment, industry and medicine. And so it's a very, very important technology and it's actually defined as the use of living organisms or substances from those living organisms to make or modify a product, improve plants or animals, and then develop microorganisms also for specific use. So they actually employ enzymes, and you know that enzymes mostly are from microorganisms. They are basically made by microorganisms here. And so, yeah, so we have two aspects, it's classified into two, the modern biotechnology and the traditional biotechnology. So the traditional biotechnology is about thousands of years ago, and it's all about fermentation, selective breeding, and so on and so forth. So while the thing is all about gaining, using high techniques, of course, to develop plants, animals and what, to be able to meet up, especially in agriculture, in the era of agriculture. All right, fine, let's talk about agriculture since you have just mentioned that let's continue with that particular line of thought. So tell us more what the role of biotechnology is really in enhancing food production, because right now, Nigeria, Africa is actually facing a bit of food crisis. So how does biotech come in? All right, biotech comes in as a complementary tool to the traditional breeding methods. To the traditional farming, that our farmers have been engaged into. It uses high techniques, of course, it has the potential to address specific problems, challenges that we face, such as the climate change effects, such as the insect and pest infestation of our crops, soil degradation, that's infatility, soil infatility, flood, drought, salinity and all those things. All these are some of the factors that actually affect productivity. It makes our farmers, you know, to keep on farming, tilling the soil without any good outputs. Their productivity is usually between one to three percent. It's never high. So but this technology now has that potential, very immense potential, great promise to make farmers to have higher yields so that their productivity, of course, will be high at work. So they will make profit. By developing some of the crops, to be able to resist some of these insects and pests, insect and pest are very highly devastating. And then the salinity, so that some crops can be tolerant to salinity and then tolerant to flora, tolerant to drought. And then some of them can be climate smart, you know, and all those things. And then some can actually be enhanced to have, you know, high nutritional value, you know, some foods to be highly nutritious, you know, so that the malnutrition that is highly prevalent in the country and in Africa at large can be addressed, you know, by this technology. We are not saying it's a panacea, but it can actually contribute because it's been proven, you know, over, you know, in other countries in the U.S., in Brazil, in Canada, in China, I can go on or even in Africa here, in South Africa, you know, they are actually enjoying the benefits, the farmers over there are reaping the benefits of the use of this technology. So Nigeria has also joined suit and our farmers over here are already, you know, reaping, beginning to reap the benefits, especially the cowpea that has just been — Okay, before we get into the cowpea, let's stay on the farmers. You said that they are reaping the benefits, but really most times people are really prone to not accepting changes. We really want to just go with the normal way or the usual way of doing things. Now, would you really say that farmers in Nigeria have begun to accept this technology and what are the testimonies that you have gotten as a government agency even after harvest? Yeah, of course, farmers are accepting. They have accepted because the demand that we are having — what I'm saying is because of the demand is evidence-based. We are experiencing farmers — I mean, the demand that we have for this cowpea that has been modified to resist a disturbing insect called Maruka vitrata. Maruka is a butterfly, and so it can actually give losses — I mean, up to 90%, 80% losses to farmers. It makes them lose sometimes everything that they have cultivated. So now that we have this one, which has been developed to resist that Maruka in that butterfly, of course, farmers are seeing it as evidence-based in their farms. And those that have cultivated the cowpea, especially last year — I mean, many of them went into it, but we were not able to meet the demand because last year was actually the first year, but this time around we're going to have more seeds. The demand is very high because most of the people, not even the farmers, even some public servants cultivated on a small scale. And the yield they got was really overwhelming. It's been so exciting. The farmers are happy because they're seeing it. They're seeing that the gene is working. The insects — I mean, I'm not even going near the — well, I also cultivated it, but I don't think I've ever seen — I ever saw Maruka around the farm. And so that's something with the farmers. So the number of sprays has reduced from eight sprays when you plant the conventional cowpea, now down to two sprays. And that's of economic importance because you don't have to do like eight tail sprays for you to have iron. But now, with this technology now, of course, it has actually been proven efficacious. Some farmers don't even do the sprays at all. If you know that you are not your area, you know, it's not prone to Maruka. Of course, you might not even need to spray it even once or so. And so, but even the two sprays is to take care of other insects that are not in the same family with Maruka because a cowpea is susceptible to other insects, you know, other than Maruka. All right. And so, I mean, it's evidence-based. A child will convince you. All right. I can send you this and you can try by yourself. And because the yield is high. And it's early maturing. Only 75 days is ready once you plant it. All right. And the yield will be high and that's it. All right, Doctor. Gidele, just Hangal, we'll take a breather now and we'll come back. We'll talk more about if there are safety concerns related to the new use of bowel technology. We'll discuss some more. Another key factor is hindering the adoption of eating Nigeria. In the moment, there's still business in sight on Plus TV Africa. We'll take a quick break and return with more to join us again. All right. Welcome back. It's still business in sight on Plus TV Africa. And we are looking at the role of bowel tech in ensuring food security in Nigeria. And we have joining us, Dr. Rose Gidadu, Deputy Director of NAPDA. Thanks for staying with us, Dr. Gidadu. Let's talk more concerning this now. Just for sake of understanding. Are there food safety concerns related with the use of bowel tech? Yeah, of course. There are food safety concerns. And this is not just with this technology. It's a global phenomenon. All technologies, any new technology that comes into play. Of course, there will be concerns. But so far, you know, all those concerns are perceived. They're not real. And most of those concerns are being raised by environmentalists, you know, simply because you're using, you know, doing is a gene exchange, taking genes from an unrelated species to an unrelated species. And so their concern is that there may be interaction, you know, that could cause either danger or walls, you know, within that crop that you have defaults. But ultimately, their feed and their safer consumption? So far, there's no food safety concern that has been reported, whether somebody has consumed and, you know, maybe became ill or what. So some group of scientists in Nigeria also conducted a history of safe use for the transgenic, that's the copy that has been developed, you know. And I think they did it for many years. And they found that not even one ill health issue was reported. All right. And these are Nigerian scientists. They are Nigerian scientists. The scientists that developed this at ABU Zaria, Institute for Agricultural Research. All right. So they also know that there's no safety concerns. There's a world scientific consensus for the safety of their crops. Currently, the safety is actually being endorsed by world health organizations with an agricultural organization, environmental protection agency, USDA, and several other scientific bodies. All right, Dr. Ghidado. All right. Dr. Ghidado, let's talk more concerning this BT cowpea because the average Nigerian, myself inclusive, I love eating cowpea, that these beans are like we call it, you know, here in the local parlance. Let's talk about, you know, this cowpea for one minute. You know, you just talked about how it's been accepted by farmers in Nigeria. But let's talk about affordability right now. For the average farmer, is it something they can easily get access to? And economically, is it something they don't have to go rob the bank, you know, to be able to, you know, cultivate this particular species? Yeah, we're trying all our best to make this set available to all farmers. It's not expensive. It's one kilogram, I think it's 1000 naira per kilogram. And so it's not really expensive, it's affordable by every farmer. And the availability is actually the issue. This year, I think many seed companies, we have local seed companies, about three local seed companies and we have an additional seed company now and many other growers, of course, they've joined to produce enough seeds for the farmers. All right, thank you. There will be this year availability and the affordability is already there. All right, before we let you go now, Dr. Ghidado, if there are any tell us what are the key factors hindering the adoption of this particular agreek biotechnology in Nigeria? Let me say that as a country, we've made huge progress anyway in the adoption, but one other thing is the low level of awareness that exists, low level awareness, some people are ignorant, some because they don't have the knowledge, they don't have the information, the scientific information available to them for them to understand that these foods, any food that's made from or any crop that is genetically modified or any food that is from a genetically modified crop is safe as safe as the conventional counterparts because they undergo a lot of scrutiny. So not all people understand that fact. So awareness, the level of awareness is actually low. We're trying our best under the platform of the open forum on agricultural biotechnology. I'm the country coordinator and we've been trying our best to do, but you know that Nigeria is actually large and diverse, so we need more people on board to join us in the campaign to tell Nigeria to give them those scientific facts that they need. Those evidence-based facts, of course, to show, to showcase that, of course, the technology is very, very safe because we have a safety valve in place in Nigeria. We have an agency, a regulatory agency, national biosafety management agency. The agency is the competent national authority, of course, on safety. When it comes to safety, of course, they are the competent national authority and they are actually well-capacitated. All right, thank you, Dr. Guilardo. Thank you. All right, we must say a very big thank you for sharing these useful insights and not just to Nigerians, but specifically to farmers who should be making the most of this wonderful opportunity that technology has brought to indeed farming and, of course, the economy of Nigeria. Thank you so much. We have been speaking with Dr... Thank you for joining us in the campaign. All right. Thank you so much. We've been speaking with Dr. Rose Guilardo. She is the deputy director of NAPDA. And I've actually been enlightened more about the BT Copy because I love eating beans. All right, I would leave you with tips on how to write an informal proposal to help in your business. I don't know. That's the size of the show. We'll return again next week. I am Justin Atadonia. Many thanks for watching. Writing an informal proposal. The thought of writing a proposal overwhelms many people, but the task does not have to be daunting. Informal proposals are written when people need to ask permission to make a purchase, undertake a project, or write a paper. This type of proposal is a way of persuasively putting forth an idea and asking for action to be taken on that idea. When writing a proposal, consider who will read the proposal and what that person may or may not already know about what you are proposing. Follow these steps when writing a proposal. One, state your purpose. Do this clearly and concisely so that the reader knows immediately what you are writing. Two, give some background information. Explain why you are proposing your suggestion so that the reader has a better understanding of the problem. Three, state a solution to the problem. This is where you give specifics about your suggestion. Four, show costs. Lay out any costs that will be involved. Five, conclusion. Wrap it up by restating the problem and the proposed solution.