Agro Institute urged to commercialise research findings

 The Chairman of the NRCRI Governing Board, Chief Oluwole Aina, stated this during a familiarization tour of the station at the weekend.He said: “Research institutes in other nations like India, China and Brazil, even very close to us here, Kenya and Uganda, have commercial outlook rather than government outlook. All their research results are commercialized.” […]

 The Chairman of the NRCRI Governing Board, Chief Oluwole Aina, stated this during a familiarization tour of the station at the weekend.
He said: “Research institutes in other nations like India, China and Brazil, even very close to us here, Kenya and Uganda, have commercial outlook rather than government outlook. All their research results are commercialized.”
He urged the management of the out-station to explore ways of generating revenue internally to run the station, adding that the “days where government can provide every of your need is over.”
 He applauded the achievements of the station’s management and promised to reposition the station.
Earlier in his address, the head of the station, Dr Eddy Nwaogu, lamented that NRCRI Nyanya out-station is the least developed in terms of physical infrastructure among all the institute’s outstations in the country.
Nwaogu listed the problems facing the outstation to include inadequate land for research activities, insufficient office accommodation, shortage of research officers, inadequate facility at the outstation and the threats by host community over promises made to them by past managements of the station, which has stalled some ongoing projects in the station.
“Our station not only supplied a total of 1,500 bundles of improved cassava cutting in 2012, but also coordinated the establishment by contract farmers, of 5.0 hectares of improved cassava farm at Ukya in Kuje Area Council of the FCT as well as three cassava demonstration farms at Masaka and Jidna in Nasarawa State,” he said.
In his response the Executive Director, NRCRI, Dr. J Okonkwo, promised to look into the constraints facing the station, particularly the issue of land for the station, and to deploy more research officers from Umudike to the outstation to strengthen its research base.