Food Security: IAR&T advocates more funding for ADPs

Making the call in Ibadan at the opening of its 28th annual South-west Zonal Research Extension Farmers Input Linkage System (REFILS) workshop, the Director of IAR&T, Professor James Adediran, lamented the negative impact of the withdrawal of World Bank funding from the agricultural development projects, a situation which he said has made it difficult for […]

Making the call in Ibadan at the opening of its 28th annual South-west Zonal Research Extension Farmers Input Linkage System (REFILS) workshop, the Director of IAR&T, Professor James Adediran, lamented the negative impact of the withdrawal of World Bank funding from the agricultural development projects, a situation which he said has made it difficult for them to carry out On-Farm Adaptive Trials (OFAR), Monthly Technology Review Meetings (MTRM) and other extension activities.
He said: “The number of extension agents has continued to dwindle and the few still on the payroll of the agricultural development projects lack the necessary tools and incentives to perform. Thus, funding them has continued to decline at a fast rate in recent years. Regrettably, most agricultural development projects in the zone are only paid thinner salary with no fund to perform their statutory functions.
“I wish to plead, most passionately, that our state governments should re-examine, more critically, the issue of funding agricultural development projects in order to enhance the success of the scheme and significantly improve the economic well-being of our resource-poor farmers.”
Adediran enjoined the governments of states in the zone to make use of the expert services which IAR&T provide in the area of food security.
Speaking earlier, the Zonal Coordinator of REFILS in the South-west, Professor Akin Oluwatosin, stated that the theme for this year’s workshop: “Preparing Nigerian Farmers for Global Market: The Challenge of Quality Control,” had been carefully chosen to meet the current issue in agriculture in Nigeria.
“If we must woo our youth to agriculture business they must be trained to produce farm produce that will compete favourably in world market.  The next generation of farmers must be taught how to produce for both local and international market.”
The IAR&T is among the 18 National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARIs) with mandate for different agricultural commodities, while IAR&T has been coordinating the REFILS activities of agricultural development projects in the South-west.
IAR&T has the national mandate for research into land and water management for sustainable agricultural development in Nigeria, and kenaf and jute improvement, while its zonal mandates have been researching into improved maize and grain legumes, farming systems and livestock adaptable to South-west agro-ecologies.