Association seeks FG’s support in popularising organic agriculture


The Association of Organic Agriculture Practitioners of Nigeria (NOAN), on Thursday, urged the Federal Government to support its efforts in popularising Organic agriculture (OA) in Nigeria.

The Association’s National President, Prof. Victor Olowe, made this appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of the association’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Ibadan.

The NOAN president urged the government to increase the contribution Organic Agriculture was making in the Growth Enhancement Scheme of agriculture, to enable the association achieve its goal.

Olowe noted that OA was essential for the development of agriculture in the country, adding that it could improve farmers’ incomes with a lot of health benefits.

According to him, the association has registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) with the aim to improve the livelihoods of stakeholders, especially farmers in agriculture.

“We are affiliated with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements; we co-ordinate all organic agriculture related activities in the country.

“Currently, we are handling the Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) project initiative in Nigeria, we train farmers the best practices on OA, provide them inputs and attend to their challenges,” he said.

Olowe, who is a Professor of Agronomy, disclosed that NOAN would be restructured to address national issues on OA, adding that plan was underway to recruit more staff into the association’s secretariat.

Also speaking, the EOA Country Project Coordinator, Dr Olugbenga Ade-Oluwa, said that small scale farmers had been empowered on how to do organic farming while producers had also been linked to organic markets.

Ade-Oluwa noted that states’ Agricultural Development Programmes in South-West had received support in capacity building to perform extension services in organic farming through EOA project.

“Currently, we are expanding our activities to Northern Nigeria and gradually to Eastern Nigeria,” he said.


He, however, remarked that raising funds for the sustainability of the project beyond donor-funding period was one of its major challenges.

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