The Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Professor Garba Sharubutu has said the journey to attain self-sufficiency is dependent on agricultural research, training and extension services.
Professor Sharubutu stated this on Tuesday at a one-day retreat for the National Assembly Committees on Agriculture, Executive Directors of National Agricultural Research Institutes, Provosts of Federal Colleges of Agriculture and Vice Chancellors of Universities of agriculture.
“The journey to attain self-sufficiency is dependent on agricultural research, training and extension services,” he said.
He stated that the retreat is aimed at addressing the current challenges of insecurity, COVID-19 and the Russian-Ukraine which have a direct effect on the economy of the world, particularly Nigeria.
While calling on research institutes to gear towards developing innovative technology in food production, he said the ARCN is committed to the attainment of food sufficiency.
He said: “We have remained committed and very soon, you will begin to see the product of this gathering, at the level of ARCN, we remain ever committed to ensuring that all policy issues are being tackled by us.
“We want to assure our Nigerian farmers that we will be available to them for advice, we want to see how various research institutes will be able to synergise in order to do things collectively not in an isolated manner.
We also want to look at the gaps in terms of capacity and how we are going to approach it to give us a helping hand to address them, we also want to look at the budget deficit as far as the implementation of our programmes is concerned.
“Our colleges must make sure that whatever and whoever we are training, must be relevant to the policy of this government and the various extension units we have in our organisations must be working hard so that we move to the nooks and crannies of this country and make sure there is change and this must be for the good of all of us.
In his remarks, the Minister of State for Agriculture, Mustapha Shehuri said the retreat which aims at bringing stakeholders together to tinker on the need to highlight the significance of Research to drive the Agricultural System is apt
and commendable.
“Agricultural Research without any iota of doubt is crucial to raise Agricultural productivity and is of economic significance to the majority of our Small Scale farmers who are poorly resourced to access the output of Research effort.
“Agriculture Research is a vital component and indeed a strong pillar in the draft National Agriculture Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP). This is deliberate because we have to move fast to reduce hunger and poverty through Research and Technology,” he said.
He said it is important that Agricultural Research Officers work relentlessly to create innovation platforms in areas of Crops production, Livestock and Fisheries Development.
The Minister further stated that there is a need to expand the frontier of Research to adequately cover nutrition, climate change and efficient labour management using Farm Mechanization Technology.
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