Food Security: Don Calls For Adequate Funding Of Research Institutes

Professor Oba Toyin Mustapha of Department of Plant Biology, Faculty of life Sciences, University of Ilorin has stressed the need for research institutes owned by the federal government to be well funded to enhance sustainable food security.

Prof Mustapha made the call at the 221st inaugural lecture of the the University with the theme: ” Chromosome and its Dynamicity For Classification And Food Security” held at the University Auditorium recently.

Prof Mustapha, who also urged government to evolve a policy that will create a synergy between Universities and Industries added that it would go a long way to make them benefit from researches carried out in the Universities to avoid such report from gathering dust on the shelves.

“To boost crop performance, extension workers should encourage and educate farmers to use developed varieties produced as a result of researches in the Universities and other research institutes

“Biosystematics laboratories in the Universities in the country should be equipped with state of the art equipment to make preparation of metaphase chromosomes easier for students”

“The University should endeavour to establish a Molecular Biology Laboratory in the Department of Plant Biology to augment the service rendered by Central Research Laboratory of our better by far University.

“There is need to encourage and adopt molecular marker assisted breeding to accelerate yield as it offers tremendous potentials to enhance productivity. For proper and reliable identification of plants, advance molecular study using barcoding is proposed as the best
way of resolving taxonomic difficulties or confusions.

“Scientific names of plants being the keys to their literature, Biologists should endeavour to familiarise themselves with scientific names of plants for better
understanding of biodiversity.

“From experience, students are shying away from Biosystematics for the simple reason of lack of understanding the concept. To avoid shortage of Biosystematists, they should be encouraged to go into
Biosystematics aspect of Plant Biology.

“Plant Cytogenetists and Biosystematists should be motivated to make biosystematics more appealing to students.

“Adequate gene banks of crop species should be maintained and constantly updated with new materials to avoid extinction of endangered species,” he said.
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