AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIO-SAFETY: TOOLS FOR ATTAINING FOOD SECURITY AND SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRIAL GROWTH IN NIGERIA

The current world population is about 6 million and it is excepted to increase to more than 8 million by the 2025 at an alarming rate of 80 million/year (95% of which will occur in the developing world). On average about 0.8 billion of the global population are food insecure, and about 400,000 die from hunger-related causes everyday. The situation is grim in Africa. With the highest growth of 3.1%, Africa’s population is over 550 million today and is projected to increase to1.3 billion in the next 25 years. Nigeria is not left out in this, with a population of over/150 million major of its population, about 75% live in rural areas fighting food insecurity, poverty and deprivations. The challenges today are how to prepare for the unprecedented levels of global population and ensure that our teeming population has access to food at all times and to produce food in a sustainable way. To meet this projected populations need for food, crop food production must be doubled, from 2-4 billion metric tons/year. This increase in production will primarily come from increasing biological yield and not only area expansion and irrigation because land and water are becoming scare due to population increase. The response to this is to harness all instruments of sustainable agricultural growth and agricultural biotechnology is one such instrument. Biotechnology has the potential to provide new opportunities for achieving enhanced crop and livestock productivity, and improve food security and nutrition. It provides tools for adapting and modifying the biological organisms, products processes and systems found in nature. It provides a wide range of tools for industry to improve cost and environmental performance. This paper thus reviewed areas biotechnology could support for industrial growth and ends with strategies for effective use of biotechnology in Nigeria.