The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting global food systems, disrupting regional agricultural value chains, and posing risks to household food security. It has created heightened awareness of food safety for producers, businesses, governments and consumers. The agricultural input production and supply industry is facing lot of challenges around production and logistics. This affected Nodumax (a unit at IITA Business Incubation Platform that produces inoculants), the team with support from United Phosphorus Limited UPL)/Springfield who pre-financed all the inputs needed to continue with a minimum scale production flow of the rhizobium/inoculum. IITA BIP has strategically ensured that production continues so that soybean farmers can have access to this yield increasing inoculant.

Nodumax is an inoculant and bio-fertilizer with rhizobium as its active ingredient that boosts the yield of soybean by 30-40%. It contains 50% of culture (rhizobia) and 50% of the carrier material (peat). Also, it serves to replace nitrogen in the soil and 1 sachet of Nodumax will mix 10kg of Soybean seed and 5 sachets is needed for planting 1 hectares.

Soybean is among the major industrial food crops grown in every continent. Its cultivation in Nigeria has expanded as a result of its nutritive and economic importance and diverse domestic usage. Soybean has an average protein content of 40% and is more protein-rich than any of the common vegetable or animal food sources found in Nigeria. The seeds contain about 20% oil on a dry matter basis, and this is 85% unsaturated and cholesterol-free. To ensure the security of this crop and for farmers to have better yield and return on their investment, the Nodumax team has decided to strategically continue with her production with the support of her investor United Phosphorus Limited (UPL)/Springfield.

Supply of Nodumax is one of the initiatives of various stake holders which includes Nigeria government Soy bean value chain,  UPL/Springfield, Weed science department IITA,  SeedCo, IITA Soybean breeders and the IITA Business Incubation Platform to increase the average soybean yield in Nigeria to 3 – 3.5 ton/ha. This is to ensure that farmers achieve better yield and income.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nodumax team has continued with minimum production and are now set to go back to full scale production. This is to ensure that farmers in Nigeria have access to this high yield increasing bio-fertilizer which is made in Nigeria. Hunger indeed kills fast than the virus and there are projections already on food insecurity, and as an organization we are working with the support of our investor UPL/Springfield to ensure that farmers this input, consumers have food for consumption and industries have raw materials for production.

You can visit www.iitabip.com to learn more about the organization and product. For further enquiry, kindly reach out to Victoria Ayeni on [email protected], +2348039784232.