The Federal Government has reached an agreement with its Israeli counterpart to use science and technology innovations to drive food security, improve health care and rapid industrialisation.
The Minister of Science and Technology Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu said the Federal Government would partner Israeli in the area of science and technology to improve food security, provide high yielding resistant seedling, pest control and mechanisation.
“If we don’t mechanise the process of farming we can never get young people to farm because I cannot see any young person who will go and use the machete that our great grandfather used.
“We are more interested in producing food to make sure that Nigerians are not hungry, to make sure we are producing enough power to light our factory and our homes and we make sure that we power the industrialisation drive of the nation for alternative source of energy,” he stated.
Onu reiterated the determination of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology to ensure that the nation’s economy was transformed from a resourced-based economy to knowledge-based, to effectively utilise all resources available in the country.
He also noted that the ministry was working hard to help Nigeria create jobs through research and innovations that would grow its Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
“We are planning science, technology and innovation expo. This will be a multiple exposition in the country that will involve the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, all research institutes in the country, all universities and all research laboratories in our various industries those who are in the informal sector.
“We want to make sure we pull all the resource together, then we will invite the entrepreneurs, and investors to help us in the search for commercialization of our research findings,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nadan Goren assured that Israel was ready to share its knowledge on technology and innovation with Nigeria.
