Center Overview
Bioresources Development Centre, Langtang started operation in 2017 with the mandate to promote bioresources development in its catchment area. It moved to its permanent site at Talbut Shibier in Langtang in 2020. Technical divisions in the Centre include Crop Bioresources Division, Animal Bioresources Division, Bioresources Production/Processing as well as Bioresources Training and Services (BTS), all having prospects for research and development. Ongoing projects at the Centre are perimeter fencing, administrative building, extension of electricity to the Centre, access roads, bore hole, tissue culture laboratory, molecular biology laboratory.
Center Objectives
- Preservation and provision of various Bioresources for scientific, industrial agricultural, environmental, medical uses and for research applications.
- Promotion of technologies and database to achieve best practices in development of indigenous Bioresources.
- Establishment of bio repositories for developed bio resources for protection of intellectual property rights and future use.
- Popularization of developed bio repositories for public information and policy formulation to encourage commercial production.
- Utilization of indigenous bioresources materials to support R&D activities for preservation of the nation’s ecological biodiversity.
- The training and continuous training of experts in the field of bioresources development.
- The promotion and collaboration in bioresources development with the private and public sectors, researchers, industries and the academia.
- Development of bioresources entrepreneurship programmes in support of National natural medicine, agriculture and industry activities in Nigeria.
- Development and breeding of livestock and aquatic lives as well as microbial organisms for beneficial uses, e.g. Mushrooms, plantlets and seedlings of elite crops like cassava stems in terms of rapid multiplication using modern tissue culture techniques
Center Research Capacity
The Centre has technical divisions with potential for research. These include animal bioresources division, crop bioresources division, bioresources production/processing and bioresources training and services. A tissue culture laboratory has been constructed and awaiting equipment. A molecular biology laboratory is under construction. In anticipation of the take-off of the tissue culture laboratory, some staff of the Centre have been trained on tissue culture techniques at the NABDA Headquarters, Abuja
List of Bioresources Identified:
- Crops –millet, guinea corn, maize, rice, yam, cassava, cowpea, banana. cotton, hibiscus sandariffa (zobo), beniseed, sweet potato
- Medicinal Plants- moringa, neem, arthemisin annua, boabab
- Livestock – Cattle, sheep, goat, rabbit, pig, poultry
- Fish- For aquaculture.eg cat fish, tilapia