The National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT) has trained 50 households within its neighbourhood in Ibadan on home gardening.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the one-day training, held on Wednesday, is tagged “Sensitisation Training on Community Home Gardening for Residents in NIHORT Neighbourhood”.
NIHORT Executive Director, Prof. Muhammed Attanda, reiterated the institute’s commitment to ensuring Nigerians’ self-sufficiency in nutritional foods and best practices of growing leafy and fruit vegetable crops in their home gardens.
“We are working and saying that all Nigerians should know how to cultivate what they will eat.
“We are training these households to improve their livelihood and self-sufficiency in vegetable food production.
“We have done the training based on geopolitical zones before. Now, looking inward, we decided to train the residents of NIHORT’s neighbourhood.
“This is the best time because we are now in the dry season when vegetable crops are usually expensive, and with this training, they can start irrigation farming,” he said.
Attanda said the trainees would be given quality seedings developed by the institute’s scientists to plant in their various gardens at home.
Earlier, the training coordinator, Dr Olutola Oyedele, said the 50 households were carefully selected within the institute’s neighbourhood for the training’s first phase, which would be in batches.
Oyedele, one of the institute’s Director of Research, says the training guarantees food security, saving participants the cost of buying vegetable crops in the market.
“We all know the cost of food items in the market at the moment, of which, vegetables are inclusive, especially during this dry season.
“The benefit is that they will be able to feed their households if they now have gardens at their homes; in addition to securing their health,” she said.
A participant, Mrs Oni Oluwatoyin, said she could now properly plant Ewedu, which she had been planting wrongly before.
“I now know that one will have to put the Ewedu seed in hot water before planting,” she said.
Another participant, Mr Godwin Udo, commended NIHORT for a “well-coordinated training”.
He said the training would tremendously benefit the participants and Nigeria in general. (NAN)
