Dr. Ayo Afolabi-Toye of the Department of Animal Production, University of Ilorin is the chairman of the university's moringa plantation committee. In this interview with Daily Trust, he speaks about the university's interest in moringa and the economic potentials of moringa regarded as the magic tree because of its rich medicinal value. Excerpts:

Can you give an insight into the university's moringa plantation?

The University of Ilorin has a moringa plantation that comes under the university's Moringa Plantation Management Committee which was set up by the university management to look into the University of Ilorin moringa interest as part of efforts to raise our internally generated revenue. So we have a mission to educate, we have a mission to research and develop knowledge and find ways of disseminating it in a way that benefits the communities within which we exist. So, we have the moringa plantation which is close to the university's dam site and we have planted several hectares of moringa which is primarily moringa leaf plantation. One has to make very early distinction as to whether or not to dedicate the plantation to leaf or to seed or other aspects. This plantation is for leaf principally, although we will start extending to other aspects of the moringa plant.

Additional activities of the university's moringa plantation include the hosting of scientific conferences which bring people together, people who are stakeholders in the entire moringa value chain - from the person who plants moringa to the person who processes, packages, distributes, sells moringa, transforms it in a way that moves it from the primary product to something which is value added. And then we have some researchers who are well placed to identify the problems of the industry and of course to address these problems. We had a very successful conference last year and we are building up to another one.

Why moringa?

We are looking at it both at educational level and commercial. In the context of our commercial operation, the university grows moringa, processes moringa to moringa leaf powder and sells that product. The university is currently building an ultra-modern factory for processing moringa at a location very close to its moringa farm and the idea of this is we can produce moringa products which meet the highest standard; the international standard and which is of course available to all Nigerians or Kwarans or Ilorin people and indeed should meet standards that make it available to others across the world. We rather hope that we can be a beacon of excellence in this region and as we do that we can also showcase excellence within Nigeria and overseas to the benefit of our country.

How many hectares of the moringa did the university plant?

The university has a kind of pilot plantation and at the moment the plantation is just 200 hectares. We have capacity to grow more but we have decided to set that limit rather low but we are increasingly focusing on generating markets to further process to the highest standard. One of the modules which we are applying is that which we can contract growing of moringa to others outside to generate employment and additional economic wherewithal in the context of buying moringa from outside. We have occasionally bought moringa from outside to supplement what the university produces from its plantation. We only deal with moringa which we know about from the context of the way it is planted, how it is managed, when it is harvested and indeed processing is in our own hands so that the customers can be absolutely served the highest quality of the products.

How is it planted?

Moringa is usually planted as a seedling. The university has a moringa nursery. Part of the university's operation indeed includes setting up moringa nursery plant where we sell moringa seedlings and also assisting other organisations in setting up their own plantations. Sometime last year, Land Mark University at Omu Aran bought 5,000 seedlings from the University of Ilorin to establish their own plantation. So, not only that, we are directly involved in producing moringa, and assisting others in setting up their own operations.

How long does it take to harvest?

After about three to four months, it would be ready for keeping and many of the leaves kept transform to process moringa leaves. Sometimes after the first harvest, it would be possible to harvest moringa leaves every four to five weeks. So one might expect that in the first half of the rainy season, one might get two to three harvests and later in the year you have one or two more harvests. So anything between three and about six harvests a year if possible with natural rain but for post irrigation, one might get more cycle. But if one is interested in farming moringa for seeds, I would expect that somewhere between six and eight months for the seeds to start falling.

What are the economic benefits of moringa?

You have heard of many claims about, purported health benefits. There are hundreds of medical conditions which moringa heals. These include proper regulation of blood glucose, diabetes, proper regulation of blood pressure, hypertension, and heart disease and so on and so forth. And these are diseases one might say are endemic in this part of the world and often one finds that the immediate people don't really have the benefits of access to good medical care and of course this is changing as the federal government continues to invest in health and medical services.

We at the University of Ilorin don't see moringa as a medicine; we see it essentially as a supplement which has medicinal value. We also don't advocate taking moringa as a direct replacement of medical treatment rather what we encourage is that when people take moringa, they should make observation and when they see their doctors they see if there is any difference in their health condition.

Our experiment on animals at the University of Ilorin has shown in various ways that moringa is very good for general health. What we have discovered is that if people take things which make them unhealthy and at the same time they are taking moringa, their health stays good. Our Vice Chancellor, Professor Abdulganiyu Ambali, actually has a history of working on moringa in research. We see moringa as an instrument for youth empowerment. We see it as an instrument for Nigeria sharing this dividend of so-called democracy in growing wealth from knowledge which exists. Not only is an instrument for youth empowerment in the context of getting them employed, in the context of getting them gainfully occupied and giving them economic wealth which allows them do something within their expectation, but Nigeria as a nation is blessed with a climate which actually allows moringa to grow well. Now not every country has that.

Moringa is highly promoted in the United States. A recent study, about a month and half ago, proclaimed moringa as the next super food; it is being promoted to Americans by the American media. But when you look at the United State of America, moringa doesn't grow everywhere. There is a huge opportunity for Nigeria. Its agriculture history of exporting primary material, we should take advantage of this to export moringa and earn foreign revenue but Nigeria should not just be an exporter of primary product, we can transform this product and make it a value added product to increase our revenue generation. It won't cost more than N500,000 to set up a hectare in a virgin land but at the end of that production circle, it would earn an individual N2.2 million.

For farming moringa, we employed labour to do much of the work. It is incredible. For that to happen and to be sustained as more people enter into moringa production, the federal government, the state governments, the various stakeholders in promoting agriculture in Nigeria have to work together to enforce the highest standard of moringa harvested product, to educate the farmers about how to maintain the highest standard and the value of maintaining the highest standard and then of course to work with participants in that sector of the moringa value chain to find market, to develop market and to export.

Moringa has huge potentials but it takes the stakeholders working together to continue to develop this particular remarkable crop's potential to contribute to Nigeria's overall economic development.