In an effort to ensure food availability and productivity, the Executive Director of Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, Moore Plantation, Ibadan, Prof. Mrs. Obatolu Veronica has said Nigeria needs to have good agricultural farming system by extending its impact to farmers, adding that effective agricultural extension service and networking are needed to boost food production in the country.
Prof. Veronica made this disclosure while delivering a paper at the Sensitisation Workshop on Revitalisation of Agricultural Extension in Nigeria, tagged: “Catalysing Effective Agricultural Extension Service Delivery at the Grassroots,” organized by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development in collaboration with National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria(NAFN), Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa(AGRA) and International Food Police Research Institute(IFPRI).
In her paper titled: “Revitalisation of Agricultural Extension in Nigeria,” she said the presentation was to identify all stakeholders with the Agricultural system and how effective networking can be.
“We have identified the stakeholders and observe that even outside the agricultural sectors, we have other stakeholders, like the environment, healthy sector and so on, that need to come together in other to network,” she said.
According to her, to achieve good agricultural farming system, there is a need to extend its impact to farmers and people on the farm.
She explained that the revitalisation of the National Extension System comes as a veritable means to boost the nation’s efforts in food production, which is expected to increase agricultural sector contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The Professor noted that the extension services available within the country are not properly funded, saying that “if we need to extend, to let Agriculture grow, we need to extend some of the technologies that is on shore”.
So far, Prof. Obatolu said the workshop has been able to achieve the need for linking all stakeholders within and outside the Agricultural sector. Also, she said the session has been able to identify networking procedures, such as having innovative value chain with the help of ICT.
Prof. Veronica stressed the need for incentives that would foster and encourage the mobilisation and development of farmer groups around clusters to enhance agricultural extension services delivery to them through the Agric Extension Service Providers (AESP).
Speaking further, she said the government alone cannot handle the effective extension service delivery. Hence, “there is a need to recommend a favourable policy environment for active private sector investment in the management, operation and funding of extension service delivery.”
She then urged farmers to join cooperatives in order for them to be known, adding that there are a lot of organizations that are ready to support farmers.