The ECOWAS Commission is to boost agricultural researches in some selected Nigerian universities with $56 million.
Prof. Damian Chikwendu, the National Project Coordinator of West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme, Nigeria stated this on Thursday at a consultative meeting with the representatives of the universities in Makurdi, Benue State.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the fund is an initiative under the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme, one of the commission’s agricultural projects in the sub-region.
Chikwendu urged the institutions to look at possible areas of collaboration with WAAPP on genetic materials such as seeds and fingerlings.
According to him, the project is aimed at achieving the paradigm shift in agricultural researches.
He urged the universities to endeavour to make the researches participatory.
However, Chikwendu did not disclose the names of the selected universities.
Chikwendu recalled that WAAPP began in Nigeria 2007 and became effective in January 2012 while permission for its full implementation was granted in April 2013.
He said: |WAAPP is a two-phase programme with each phase lasting for five years and its main objective is to promote agricultural productivity while promoting regional integration as instruments for shared growth and poverty reduction in West Africa.
“The development objective of WAAPP-Nigeria is to strengthen the National Agricultural Research Systems.”
Chikwendu stressed that there was the need to accelerate the adoption of technologies and facilitate access to improve genetic materials.
According to him, farmers, processors and marketers numbering about 1.5 million are expected to benefit directly from the project.
He said that the universities had been told to draw up proposals on possible areas to channel the funds.
Earlier, Dr. Baba Abubakar, the Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, advised that the researches should be demand-driven in order to become relevant to the system.
Abubakar assured Nigerians that with the collaboration, WAAPP would be able to achieve its objectives.
He tasked the universities to be more responsive and accountable, while urging them to effectively involve end-users of the research system.
The executive secretary said that the selected universities formed the pilot group of the project.
NAN also reports that WAAP used the occasion to sign an MoU with the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi on fingerlings multiplication and hatchery.
In his remarks, Prof. Emmanuel Kucha, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, said the university would be willing to participate in subsequent WAAPP programmes.
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