‘We had breakthrough in maize breeding’
As a lecturer of agricultural economics, do you own a farm?My job is to teach the students and I’m doing so to the best of my ability. I teach Agricultural Economics and we are producing farmers. I’m also serving as a consultant to different organisations locally and internationally as part of my contribution to the […]
As a lecturer of agricultural economics, do you own a farm?
My job is to teach the students and I’m doing so to the best of my ability. I teach Agricultural Economics and we are producing farmers. I’m also serving as a consultant to different organisations locally and internationally as part of my contribution to the society through agriculture. Therefore, I’m too engaged in teaching and researches and these have not really allowed me to concentrate on my own farm. Of course, I have a farm but I lease it to people. I leased out my farm property to other people owing to certain constraints. But with time, when I slow down on my consulting activities and travelling, I will go back to the farm because I’m a practical person and I love practical. I have farms but am not fully into farming now. With time, I intend to fall back on it and sit with it.
In what way did your faculty impact directly on the farmers?
Osun Rural Enterprise an Agricultural Programme, (O’REAP) is one of the most robustly designed agricultural development agenda of Governor Aregbesola and I’m happy to be part of that programme as a consultant. I joined O’REAP in May 2012 and I supported the initiative in moving forward to some level in what we call O’REAP project appraisal document. As a member of the O’REAP team, we assist the state government to design projects under the scheme and give advice. We also came up with a lot of initiatives such as O’BEEF and others. We have also worked to an advanced stage on commercial eggs production. There are very fantastic projects that I designed. But the big problem is that many members of that team do not share the passion of the governor in developing agriculture in the state. So, there was misunderstanding among the members of the team and that caused a major setback. Otherwise, if people who are members of that team were not at loggerheads, the success we saw in the agricultural sector under this governor would have been much greater. But lack of unity and clear leadership has cost that government a lot.
The achievement we have seen is not commensurate to the investment that has gone into it. The governor is a great man, he has vision but most members of that team do not share his vision and passion and it is quite unfortunate. Seasoned professionals work day and night to produce fantastic designs but when it comes to implementation, it is always a problem.
What can you tell us about the Ife Brown?
I did not do my degrees here in OAU Ile-Ife; I finished from University of Ibadan. While I was in Ibadan, I heard of Ife Brown which is a spice of cow pea developed by renowned scientists in this faculty in Ife. It may surprise you that those scientists are still members of this faculty. The second area that this faculty has had breakthrough is in maize breeding. A federal government programme involving members of this faculty. There is also a new project promoting indigenous vegetables. The project is between Nigeria and Canadian government and it’s a partnership between Osun State University and OAU. More so, some of us who are professionals from this faculty, we have assisted the Federal Ministry of Agriculture partaking in various long term and short term policies that are being developed by the federal government in the agricultural sector.
We have a lot of professionals. I stand bold to be controverted; most of the agricultural development efforts in this country have a hand of OAU taping from our world class professionals in this faculty who contribute their own quote at different levels to national agricultural development policies. Also, OAU is a leading agricultural training institution in Nigeria and beyond. So, we have a lot of breakthroughs.