By Praise Chinecherem
Anambra State Government has disclosed its plans to establish demonstration farms across the 21 Local Government Areas as part of efforts to encourage farmers to migrate to regenerative agriculture.
Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr Foster Ihejiofor, who dropped this hint while addressing key officers of the Ministry, said the farming project would be stepped down to all the 179 communities in the state.
“We’re going to step down the project to all the 179 communities in the state due to the numerous benefits desirable from the agricultural policy,” she added.
A Biological Conservative, Prof. Cordelia Ebenebe in a paper presentation on “Techniques in Compost and Compost Making”, said time had come for a shift from Chemical agriculture to Regenerative agriculture.
“There is a difference between regenerative agriculture and commonly mentioned organic. While organic is consumer health driven because of chemical residue in it that brings about ill health, regenerative agriculture is ecosystem driven.
“it is about biological processes that ensure that plants are resistant to diseases so we don’t need pesticides and then the micro organisms in the soil together with the compost manure”
She explained that excessive use of chemical fertilizers had led to several issues including serious soil degradation, nitrogen leaching, soil cccompaction, reduction in soil organic matter and loss of carbon.
She added, “An estimated production target of 40 tons of compost heaps every month would be needed in each of the six agricultural zones to drive the policy to achieve the desired effect.
“The major thing government wants to achieve is kind of regaining the health of the people. We begin to realize that our food is either the medicine or health to us.
“So that we get food that is devoid of chemicals that will expose us to health risk so Anambra people will eat good food, make good processes that will give them health instead of poison.”
