…approves 250 technologies ready for up take
The Federal Government, through the Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) have developed technologies that will not only help the country fight malnutrition but manage sickle cell anemia in the country.
The product, called Nutrocituca are two legumes with Nigerian based raw materials which has been successful so far with children livingwith sickle cell disease and have prevented them from going into crises.
On managing malnutrition, biscuits have been produced that meets the recommended diatery allowance needs of children from ages 5 to 12 to prevent malnutrition and is being mass produced by NASCO biscuits.
Director General/ Chief Executive Officer (CEO) FIIRO, Prof. Gloria Elemo made the revelation during the FIIRO day celebration at the Technology and Innovation week in Abuja.
She stated, “Today we are showing the automation of process technology and indigenous technologies that have been developed, we have the automation od the kunu plant, where you can have kunu that can stay off the shelve without refrigeration for about two years, it has export potentials we have automated it, so also Zobo has been automated.
“The program now and our initiative is that all our processed technology will now be automated to industrial large scale, it can be handled from the small scale, medium and large scale.
“We are the core of the agricultural value chain, if you produce and you are unable to process for optimum utilization then you would have been making a mockery of agriculture, we play a core part in the agricultural value chain. We have R&D results that can handle all the agricultural raw materials in the country, even waste management of agricultural products.
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“We have over 250 technologies that are ready for uptake, this is not those that are still coming up, this year and last year alone, we have about 20 patents registered in the name of FIRO, we are constantly working and ready to move this country from being a third world country to an industrialised one. Even in using casava alone, the casava value chain alone, in FIRO, we have over 25 products for industrial development.
“We have a large number of industrialists here, May and Baker, NASCO, Honeywell many that are our collaborators. The biscuits we are talking about meets one third of the recommended dietary allowance for children between ages 5 and 12, that is we are totally eradicating and preventing malnutrition, we are looking at both macro and the micro nutrients, thus is the first time thag a pack of biscuits and snacks will have such high nutrients. It took about four years for development, all circles of R&D have been done on it and NASCO biscuits in Jos has taken up the technology and today it is ready for full blast production.
“We also have other products like Nutrocituca for the management of sickel cell anaemia, they are just two legumes, all Nigerian based raw materials and from our clinical studies and all the R and D results we have shown, we have been very successful, none of the children involved in clinical studies have actually gone into crises and May and Baker is here today and us also taking up such technology.”