Scientist to gov’t: Improve cotton production, grant stimulus to shelve distraction

A soil scientist at the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR) Samaru, Zaria, Professor Ado Yusuf, has advocated the improvement of National Cotton Product Utilisation internally and to grant further stimulus of shelving undue external distraction.

The soil expert, who stated this at the 2023 Annual Cotton Master Sample and Production meeting held at the Institute of Agricultural Research, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, said the action would reinvigorate the cotton industry and restore its lost glory.

Prof. Yusuf, who is also the executive director of the institute, also called on the private sector to be more proactive in the development of cotton value chain to leverage on government’s goodwill of research result provision like that from the IAR.

He noted that the institute’s effort was geared towards raising the level of cotton genetic recombination through increased hybridisation and saying that the institute has genetic material for farmers utilisation.

It is also making deliberate efforts to bring the institute closer to industry players, cotton seed companies, lint utilisers, textile mills and environment- related issues to support cotton production and utilisation.

Earlier, the vice chancellor, ABU, Zaria, Prof Kabir Bala, lamented the level of reduction of cotton production in the country.

Bala, who was represented by the Dean, Postgraduate Studies, Prof Muhammad Shuaibu, said cotton had been the country’s resource base in the last 40 years but no longer such currently.

He said cotton industry was the most reliable economic source of getting foreign income by Nigerian farmers; hence the need to give it a serious consideration.

In his remark, the programme leader, Cotton Research Institute, Prof. David Idoko Adekpe, said the motton sample master and production was an annual avenue for cotton grading for season, which is set for farmers to adopt to enable them decide pricing of the commodity.

Prof. Adekpe said cotton grading was done with farmers, ginners and researchers to determine the viability of the commodity.

The cotton chief facilitator, Mr Samuel Jatau, led participants to the annual sampling for this year’s grading.

Cotton farmers and ginners from all over the country attended the meeting.