An Agro-Economist, Dr Victor Iyama, says Nigeria can generate foreign exchange by producing Indian hemp which abounds in the country for the international market rather than destroying large farms of the herb.

Iyama told members of the Food and Agriculture Writers Organisation of Nigeria (FAWON) at a stakeholder meeting in Lagos that processing hemp oil was capable of generating huge forex.

Iyama, who is also the National President of the Federation of Agricultural Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN), said that Nigeria had failed to harness all the wealth that was available. “The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) goes about destroying hemp farms and they are happy, a country that has no dollar goes about every day destroying dollars and you say you are working, which work? “When we can easily take only three months to grown hemp. A litre of hemp oil is sold for 12,000 dollars, a litre of your fuel is N145 or 200 which is about a dollar. “We have hemp in abundance here, just three months and dollars are real. All we need is adequate regulation of the production process,’’ he said. Iyama noted that nothing stops NDLEA from being posted to these farms where the processing machines would be put up and then monitor it. “If you see anybody taking it out of that place, arrest him, we do things in this country by starting to run without crawling and without walking. “Everybody is shouting China today, did China get to this place by starting from the top? No, you have to be able to face the reality, this country is blessed, in fact over blessed.

Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/08/nigeria-can-generate-huge-forex-from-processing-indian-hemp-oil-agro-economist/