NewsProbe News from Nigeria and Around the world
Raymond Ozoji, Awka
The Anambra State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) says government has acquired about 5 hectres of land for plantation and mass production of pure and unadulterated honey.
The ADP said that the medicinal and health value of undiluted honey cannot be over-stressed as it nourishes the body as well as increases the immune system.
Disclosing this to our correspondent at the ADP complex Awka yesterday, the programme manager Mr. Jude Nwankwo also stressed the urgent need for organic farming.
He said inorganic farming was detrimental to health as most chemical substances used during planting and harvesting were injurious to the human body thereby causing cancer and other diseases.
Nwankwo explained that most of the honey sold on the streets were not pure but what he described as adulterated honey and that the ADP was poised to ensure that people consumed certified ones to avoid health hazards.
He said that the state government had acquired about 5 hectres of land at Igbariam Anambra-East local government area for the production of real honey, stressing that real honey was medicinal and that most pharmaceutical industries used it in manufacturing drugs.
According to him, adulterated honey aggravates chronic diseases like diabetes and that ADP was bent on ensuring that people consume the right product; which he noted was the remote reason ADP ventured into mass production of pure honey for local consumption and export.
Apart from the production of pure honey, the ADP programme manager further disclosed that the organization was also breeding giant rats called ‘nchi’ in vernaculars.
He said most of the grass cutters got from hunters might not have been properly handled but the ADP housed and domesticated the animals in commercial quantities, noting that the animals were big delicacies eaten with relish.
Other forms of agricultural practices currently ongoing at the ADP, according to the programme manager, include snail rearing, piggery, fish farming, poultry and a host of others.
However, cognisant of the nature of soil in the state, he said that farmers’ inputs were subjected to laboratory tests to ensure that they planted certified seeds and that best practice agents equally assisted farmers with requisite information on how best to realise bumper harvest for domestic and commercial purposes.
