Fed Agric varsity Abeokuta produces turkey, Kalahari red goats

What are you into in this institution?We are into some research programmes on crop production, livestock production, aquaculture/fishery, environmental resources management and conservation programme, food security and socio economic program, food and nutrition and agricultural mechanization research programme; essentially, these are the eight programmes we have.What would you say is your major achievement so far?For […]

What are you into in this institution?
We are into some research programmes on crop production, livestock production, aquaculture/fishery, environmental resources management and conservation programme, food security and socio economic program, food and nutrition and agricultural mechanization research programme; essentially, these are the eight programmes we have.
What would you say is your major achievement so far?
For instance in crop production research program, the institute was able to work with Ofada rice farmers and we are able to register for the first time in this country two ofada varieties, FUNABOR 1 and FUNABOR 2 (Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta Ofada Rice). These are the Ofada white and the Ofada gold. So what we have now are two varieties. Before you will see mixtures, we were able to purify and register with the National Council for Registration of Crop and Livestock at the federal level and working with other institutes. That was a solid achievement.
So what has been the effect?
The effect is that it has boosted the cultivation of these crops. For the first time, people planting ofada know whether to go for white or gold varieties and we’ve been having requests and we still work with our partners to make sure they get it, that is number one. As an institute, we have eight states that we cover in our mandate, the South-western states, extending from Delta, Edo, Ondo, Oyo,  Osun etc. this is the agricultural South-west not the political South-west. So we did our diagnosis and our results are on the internet. If you look at our website, you will see the diagnosis survey reports of those eight states. The first question is what is the state of agriculture in those states? What crops do they grow? What are their problems? All these are well documented on our website and they are available globally. That was the first thing and that has been used to guide the kind of research we do.
If you go to livestock about three years ago, the university undertook a trip to South Africa and there we saw a breed of goat that was like three times the size of our own. They are called Kalahari Red Goats. They produce more milk, they grow faster, bigger and we were interested. The university has so far invested close to N75 million on them. We have brought about 57 of them. We are trying to multiply them. We have over a 100 now. We have seen that they can adapt very well to our environment and we are now trying to use them to improve our own breed. For instance, the Western African goat we have here, the common goat at three year of age, will weigh between 20 and 26 kilograms but this Kalahari red goat at one year will weigh 33 kilograms and at full maturity, the males weigh up to 114 kilograms, the females weigh 75 kilograms and they produce a lot of milk and have high nutrient rate. We’ve had them for over two years and they are doing fine.
What are your plans of having this kind of goats all over Nigeria?
We have proposals coming in to use them as improvable breed by multiplying them. For those state governments that want to partner with us, we will help them set up their facilities. We will also send the pure breeds to them and when they also multiply them, they can also give them to farmers on special arrangements. Like you give a farmer a male goat for instance, may be after two years he has to return one back to us so that we can give to other farmers.
What about birds?
Yes, we work on poultry. Our priority for poultry is egg and broiler production. But we also produce turkeys, we are working with NAPRI (National Animal Production Research Institute) on chicken production. They developed the broiler. We are working with them to have a centre here in the South-west where we can obtain parent stock and eggs to produce commercial day-old chicks. Apart from working with NAPRI in this area, we are also working together on eggs production. We have to import parent stock. So, we are now trying to domicile that within the country. We are collaborating with NAPRI on that. Then in terms of environment, we have a research farm in this university that is 2000 hectares within the research farm. We have 300 hectares for strictly nature reserve. When you look around, you don’t see tall trees again. The forest are gone, the timber merchants have taken the big trees.
The charcoal merchants are destroying the trees. So, we are now turning to grass. But we are preserving the 300 hectares in that thick research reserve so that future generations can know what a real forest looks like. It is a protected area and natural. We are also working on cocoa. We have plans for 2,000 hectares. You will see our map for land use plans. It has provision for cocoa, cola, oil palm and so on. So we have that vision. Depending on how resources are provided, we will actualize it.