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 BIORESOURCES
DEVELOPMENT
The Agricultural Biotechnology & Bio-resources
Department is one of the six departments of the Agency,
with the following functions:
- Develop the relevant biotechnology techniques to
improve crops and animal production in order that
Nigeria attains food security;
- Use biotechnology to domesticate and conserve the
enormous bio-resources the country is endowed with;
- Use biotechnology as tool to improve the health
of plants and animals for better yields.
- Harness and promote agricultural biotechnology enterprises
among the rural farmers in order to create jobs and
improve their standard of livings.
- Liaise with relevant laboratories in the nation’s
Research Institutes, Universities, Polytechnics, Colleges
of Technologies, and the biotech Zonal Centres of
Excellence across the country. Collaborate with relevant
national and international bodies and NGOs in actualising
its objectives. Develop and promote strategies for
agricultural biotechnology awareness and advocacy
to the rural people.
STRUCTURE OF THE DEPARTMENT
The Department has two Divisions; namely:
- Agricultural Biotechnology
- Bioresources Development
The department is headed by a Director, who reports
to the Director-General of the Agency, while the divisions
are headed by Deputy Directors, who report to the Director.
AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY
Agricultural Biotechnology is a very important aspect
of biotechnology. As the Yoruba adage says “if food
is out of challenges faced by man, then the rest is
no longer a big deal. Agricultural Biotechnology promises
to reduce world hunger and disease by improving local
productivity by adapting crops to local climates and
soils; increasing yield by making plants stronger and
more pest-resistant; making plants more nutritious by
creating plants with higher vitamin and protein.
The increasing use of modern biotechnology in agriculture
has generated significant debate, much of which centers
on the rapidly growing use of food crops that have been
genetically modified to make them more resistant to
pests or chemical herbicides. As a result, the debate
has not usually addressed the potential products of
agricultural biotechnology that are on the horizon.
While technology developers believe that these new products
will offer benefits in meeting needs for food, fuel
and fiber, as well as for novel industrial and pharmaceutical
uses, some of these future products are also likely
to raise environmental and other concerns that will
need to be addressed by the regulatory system.
While biotechnology falls within the tradition of improving
crops and livestock to better meet human needs, it also
greatly expands the ability to move genes within and
across species and creates a new ability to move genes
across distantly related species and biologic kingdoms.
It is this attribute of biotechnology that makes it
a potentially powerful tool for modifying nature but
which also raises ethical, health, and environmental
issues .
BIORESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
Activities of the Bioresources Development Unit include
the following:
- Grasscutter domestication
- Snail Farming
- Apiary
- Mushroom Farming
- Fish Farming
- Tissue culture
Below are the pictures of the bioresources centre and
the activities that takes place at the centre.
 
 
 
 
AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH AREAS
Nigeria is endowed with a lot of bioresources of both
plants, animals and aquaculture e.g.food crops such
as cassava, yam, corn, cowpea, beniseeds, and indeginous
animals such as giant snail, grasscutter, cat fish,
salmon fish etc.
Presently, there are enormous research needs in the
following areas:
- Increasing the reproductive rate of grasscutter
(thryonomys spp).
- Research into reducing the longetivity of Giant
Africa Snail.
- Research into the utilization of toxins produced
from some poisonous mushroom
- Modifying crops such as potatoes, papaya engineered
to resist common plant diseases. This department of
NABDA is with the mandate to produce genetically modified
soybeans, corn, cotton, sorghum, banana/plantain e.g.
in collaboration with other Agricultural sectors.
CURRENT COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS
This youth empowerment and wealth creation programme
is an initiative of the National Biotechnology Development
Agency (NABDA) to contribute to the food security situation
of the country as well as to create job and wealth for
unemployed graduates. It is also an attempt to introduce
biotechnology techniques and its benefits in crop production
in the country.
The programme is in line with the Federal Government
initiative to restore the dignity of agriculture as
a potential revenue earner for the country. The programme
is designed to be attractive to the unemployed graduates
in terms of the management and implementation. The Agency
is presently in collaboration with some organization,
at national and international level for agricultural
Research areas. NABDA is in collaboration with AFRICA
HARVEST BIOTECH FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL under the coordination
of FLORENCE WAMBUGU.A research for the biofortification
of sorghum being a staple food in Africa. NABDA is also
in collaboration with RMRDC Nigeria to improve cassava
with more protein content.
ECONOMICAL CROPS
Nigeria has economic plants
like Neem, Baobab. NABDA is seeking
research collaboration on:
- Domestication of and reduction in maturity
of baobab and neem trees.
- Increase in oil content of neem trees.
- changing the amount of a tree’s lignin – a substance
that helps provide rigidity.
- improve the ease and efficiency of processing trees
into paper.
FUTURE USE OF AGRIC BIOTECHNOLOGY
Agric Biotechnology intend to enrich both the knowledge
and dialogue surrounding agricultural biotechnology
by profiling some of the genetically engineered products
being developed by industry and university scientists.
Benefits from Agricultural Biotechnology
Realized or potential benefits of agricultural biotechnology
can be
categorized as economic, social, and environmental.
A large share of the
benefits are concentrated in industrialized countries,
where a diversity of
applications are widespread in human and animal health
care and in
many aspects of food production and processing. Some
of the potential
benefits of biotechnology are shown below.
Benefits:
Increasing crop productivity
Increasing crop quality
Environmental adaptation
Broadening stress tolerance
Increasing disease and
pest resistance
Agrochemical reduction
Production of nonedible substances
Use of new raw materials
Example:
Improving growth rate
Altering ratio of usable product (e.g.,
increased proportion of seed in rice plants)
Improving nutritional quality (e.g., specific
vitamin contents, type and content of fiber,
fat components, amino acids)
Removing food contaminants and toxins
(e.g., aflatoxins)
Improving storage properties (e.g., fresh
vegetables and fruits)
Making crops plants better adapted to
changing environments
Making plants more resistant to drought,
flooding, salinity, heavy metals, pollution
Selecting resistant varieties (e.g., using
molecular techniques to insert antiviral or
antibacterial genes from other species)
Hybridizing crops with wild relatives (e.g.,
use of cellular methods for rapid screening
for desired phenotypes)
Breeding crop varieties resistant to specific
herbicides (e.g., glyphosate-resistant soybean,
through insertion of a bacterial gene that
reduces sensitivity to herbicide)
Use of food crops to produce nonedible
products (e.g., medicinal products and
proteins, fuel alcohol, industrial oils)
Using food crops for polymer and bioplastic
production
Production of single cell (e.g., growing
bacteria on methanol for animal feed,
growing mycoprotein from fungi and wastes
from pulp and paper industry |
