As ARCN reels out scorecard…

For years, stakeholders have wondered if the research institutes in Nigeria are alive to their responsibilities, but the Executive Secretary of Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Professor  Garba Sharubutu, recently reeled out the achievements of the organisation, JOHN OBA reports.

Experts across the nation over the years have continuously analysed the importance of research and the Research Institutes to the development of the nation, especially to the agricultural sector.

There are fifteen research institutes in Nigeria whose varying mandates revolve on improvement of agricultural practices. Four University-based Agricultural Research Institutes, 11 Federal Colleges of Agriculture and Four Universities of Agriculture.

Establishment of a botanical garden in Lagos

Agricultural research in Nigeria started more than 100 years ago with the establishment of a botanical garden in Lagos during the late 19th century. By 1903, the Forestry and Botanical Department for Southern Nigeria was created. By 1912, the latter was divided into Northern and Southern regions. By 1914, the Forestry and Veterinary Departments were created. The Fishery Department evolved in 1951.

In a nutshell, by the 70’s and 80’s, different research institutes and departments of agriculture had emerged. Presently, Nigeria has the largest and most elaborate national agricultural research systems in Sub- Saharan Africa. By 2006, the government set up an umbrella body known as the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) which was established to address the challenges faced by the agricultural research system.

ARCN’s mission

ARCN’s mission is to achieve significant improvements in agricultural productivity, marketing and competitiveness through generation of appropriate technologies, policy options and knowledge management of the agricultural research system. ARCN is able to achieve their mission through the adopted village studies and the Agricultural Research Outreach Centres (AROC), yet not much seems to be done.

Agricultural research provides information for policy makers and funding agencies and also provides transfer of research-induced technology to farmers which is the only way to measure research benefits to society. Agricultural research also provides feedback to scientists on which technologies or technology components are successful at farm levels. With this in mind, concerned Nigerians has wondered if the research Institutes are working up to expectations.

Scorecard

Speaking during the Agriculture Correspondents Association of Nigeria (ACAN) Scorecards Platform recently in Abuja, the Executive Secretary of Agriculture Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Professor  Garba Sharubutu, said the Council and the Institutes under it has been up and doing to ensure that the sector benefit from its world class research products.

He however said ARCN working on amending it’s Act saying the Bill for the amendment is before the National Assembly to aid improved coordination, effectiveness and efficiency in
management, and extension activities.

Rubber Research
“On the issue of Rubber Research in terms of training extension workers, the institute unfortunately happens to be one of the few research institutes that don’t have a training component, so what they have done and to a large extent is to try and establish farm settlements and with these farm settlements they have been able to settle farmers into cooperative associations so they can reach out to the farmers.
“One of the major problems the Rubber Institute is faced with is the issue of how they are going to acquire land, and these are tree crops and they require large expanse of land for it to be able to have the impact. The issue of synthetic rubber is because it is fast yielding. These are the problems we are having. Last year we were making the budget presentation, Executive Director worked with the Senate Chairman on Agriculture trying to have the buy-in of the legislators to convince most of our younger ones to go into tha,” he said.
Cocoa Resesrch
On cocoa research, Sharubutu said cocoa has been a crop of concern to the minister. Saying when the Council went to brief the Minister on the issue of cocoa research, his first challenge is that, some of the best breeders are Yourba people, ‘Cocoa ought to be a Yoruba crop’, how come the best brains are now allowing the best product to be taken over by Ivory Coast? “Just last week the Executive Director of Cocoa Research was given a grant to develop cocoa by the government.
“You cannot have a situation where most of your products are deposited in the farms. There are cocoa seedlings and that of palm seedlings that has not been taken up, because agriculture is not a quick yielding trade, and there is stiff competition of quick yielding trade with agriculture, except we begin to look at agriculture as short and long term trade. People run to do other businesses but the impact of agriculture is more lasting.”

Anchor Borrowers Fund
Sharubutu, chided the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over misdirection of Anchor Borrowers Scheme money.

According to him, the funds should have targeted graduates of colleges of agriculture who have gone through internship training rather than randomly-selected farmers.
The ES said the grant requirements should be structured to ensure beneficiaries go through internship training at colleges of agriculture.

He said: “I do not want to query how the beneficiaries of the anchor borrowers’ scheme were selected. But I can tell you the criteria are faulty. If you want to recruit people and give them CBN money to go into agriculture, you had better recruit people with a rudimentary knowledge of the sector.” 

He lamented that less than 30 per cent of agriculture graduates practise the profession, According to him, if all the agriculture graduates in the country practise the profession and are provided with the needed take-off grants, it would have a great impact on the sector.
According to him: “If these graduates who can be early traced are given the CBN loans and monitored, 50-70% of them will be willing to stay in agriculture. But people who were not trained in the field will easily divert the loans.”

He said the council had written a proposal to the Minister of Agriculture for the establishment of entrepreneurship centres in all the colleges of agriculture. He noted that the centres would serve as a teaching ground for agriculture graduates.

He attributed the low off-take of agricultural research products to the fact that the sector is not a quick return-yielding trade as there are lots of competition between agriculture and trades. He said unless we start looking at agriculture in terms of the short and long term, we may never be able to get it right.
Livestock
National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI) according Sharubutu  have succeeded in breeding a special breed of chicken called the chicka-brown and we are currently  trying to improve on meat production.
“NAPRI attempted to do artificial insemination in order to improve genetic materials of our breed and  to have high yielding milk and meat. Artificial insemination means getting animals to stay in a place because you cannot artificially inseminate an animal that is hungry so you need to put them in one place, flush them so that when they come on heat you inseminate them and you begin to feed.
“But getting our people to stay in a place is a problem. What is our solution to it? We have keyed into the National Livestock Transformation Programme, (NLTP), and this is the best way to go; ban grazing-moving animals from one place to the other, locate them in a place. But the land tenure system and controversy that is being generated, the diversion of the good intention of government into politics, religiosity and ethnicity are really the problem.
“To be factual, I will prefer to give the land I have to save the soul and lives of my children. If something has become destructive and is a killer agent we should be able to sacrifice to ensure this thing is solved.
Creation of Forest Guards
Prof. Sharubutu lamented the problem of insecurity, saying the two things troubling the country is insecurity and economy.
“I have made presentations and I keep saying the issue of insecurity is the forest. We need Forest Guards because in Kenya, India and other countries, They have forest guards. When bandits kidnap children from Kagara or Jangede they take them to the forest because nobody knows the forest like them, and Boko Haram was able to maneuver Sambisa Forest and this issue is starring on the face.

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