Professor Bassey Andah Memorial Lecture Holds In Calabar

By Monday Ogar

Farmers in Cross River State have been urged to evolve by integrating new scientific methodologies in their farms and start to see farming as a business.

This advice was given by Prof. Fr. Godfrey Nzamujo, Director of Songhai Center of Excellence while delivering a lecture on ‘Agriculture and Food Security in Nigeria’ at the 16th Bassey Andah Memorial Lecture.

Nzamujo said the state has “succumbed to the logic of poverty or underdevelopment, simply because we are no longer capable of internally generating the capacities to build the appropriate institutions and structure that will enable us to consistently produce the social values, goods, and services that correspond to our needs and desires.

The keynote speaker underscored the importance of our Universities in the development of agriculture when he said “I am convinced that the solutions to our problem today can no longer be found in our present day attitudes and logic. We should see our lives as part of a difficult mission of developing new mental and operational framework that are based on what we know about how our world works.

“modern sciences, among other sciences, including the neurosciences, cognitive, biological sciences etc, are providing us with fundamentally different and refreshing framework about our own human dynamics, as well as those of our planets.” He said.

Also speaking at the lecture, Prof. Patrick Erhabor, who is the Guest Lecturer of the lecture, said “Agriculture prevents hunger, malnutrition, ill-health and in extreme cases of death. It also contributes to the overall growth of an economy. Problems faced by agriculture in Nigeria include population pressure, politics, prospective use of arable crops for bio-fuels, inequality, climate change, insurgency,technical problems, amongst others.”

Prof. Erhabor further posits that the lack of political will from the government and uncurtailed corruption has been the bane of agricultural growth in the state.

Respondents and organizers of the lecture charged the government to develop policies that will grow ‘agropreneurs’ who are ready and willing to transform the state.

The Bassey Andah memorial lecture is organized by the the Bassey Andah Foundation in honor of Prof. Bassey Andah who was the first Black President of the World Archeology Congress.