NAN-AE-7
Biotecnology
By Ebere Agozie
Abuja, Feb. 24, 2017 (NAN) Prof. Benjamin Ubi, the President Biotechnology Society of Nigeria (BSN), says stakeholders must synergise with the government to advance Biotechnology and Biosafety in Nigeria to achieve the desired result.
Ubi said this in Abuja on Friday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Biotechnology is the use of biological processes, organisms to manufacture agricultural inputs intended to improve the quality of life.
He said that stakeholders must see how they could help advance the role of Biotechnology and Biosafety for national development.
“We must see that biotechnology and its safety is properly developed and strategically applied in the country.
“The main challenge of biotechnology and biosafety issues is inadequate synergy and coordination between the various stakeholders.
“We have technology almost everywhere and have moved to a level whereby we cannot do without it,’’ he said.
He said that Nigeria had enough innovations in its institutions that could drive the economy successfully.
“Nigeria has innovations in its universities and polytechnics. but our major problem is inadequate coordination and synergy of the various biotechnology researchers outputs and its establishments toward effective application in nation building.
“Universities and research institutes have been churning out volumes of research and development outputs year in, year out.
“I am in the system and I know the amount of work students and lecturers put into research, but there is no synergy between the various institutions and the private sector, particularly the industries.’’
He said that one critical issue was that research and development was not demand-driven and there was limited linkage with the key primary stakeholders and biotechnology results.
“We must develop the right orientation among ourselves, because I believe in collective responsibility which will bring biotechnology to the main stream of our national life and socio-economic development.
“We should also make appropriate efforts to implement the biotechnology and biosafety policy, but you know that the issues of policy implementation is not something that can be done overnight.
“We should link up properly with the private sector on key areas that have to do with structure of governance of the biotechnology policy.’’
Ubi said that the synergy would halt duplication of efforts and one of the ways to address this is by holding regular meetings with stakeholders.
“The Federal Government should always hold meetings with stakeholders to provide opportunities for everyone to open up consciously or unconsciously to develop that orientation for stakeholders to share ideas.’’ (NAN)
EPA/MOL/EEE
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Edited by Mustapha Lamidi/Ese E. Ekama