The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has said it will be training FCT rural farmers on production of yam under its Yam Improvement for Income and Food Security in West Africa (YIIFSWA) project.
The Communication Ofiicer of YIIFSWA, Ms. Oiwoja Odihi, stated this while addressing newsmen in Abuja yesterday.
Miss Odihi said farmers would be trained on quality seed yam tubers and good agronomic practices in order to plant and harvest good quality yams.
She said the institute carried out out- growers demonstration where training was done for seed companies to know how to generate seeds from foundation seeds in 2018, and that this year, the institute would be embarking on seed yam demonstration.
“This year, we are taking it to the farmers level to know how to plant yam seeds and our project will be carried out in Ogun, Oyo, Enugu, Abia, Nasarawa, Niger, Kaduna and the FCT,” she said.
According to her, the two technologies that the institute will be promoting are the bio-reactor, which she said was like an upgraded tissue culture system, and the aeroponics system.
She explained that in order to address the situation, the institute would be coming up with technologies that would produce clean yam seeds.