Rejoinder

We hereby apologize for publishing Mrs. Grace Kikelomo as a staff of Rural Finance Institution Building Programme (RUFIN). The name supposed to be Mrs.  Fosen Grace Okelola, who spoke with us on an interview, captioned “our cooperatives economy can be enhanced through proper regulation” on page 3 of our Dec-January edition of 2015.We appreciate all that called our attention to this.

CRIN@ 50 our achievement- Prof. Malachy Akoroda

As Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN) clocks fifty years of establishment last year December, the Executive Director of the Institute, Professor Malachy Akorada has expressed happiness on the achievement being recorded so far but pointed that more is still needed to be done with the financial support of the government and private sector. 

In his chat with Food Farm News in his office, the Executive Director, CRIN Prof. Akoroda said a lot have been achieved in the last 50 years through the mandate crops of the Institute especially in the area of improve technologies to farmers, processors and marketers who have lots of our products on sales stressed that more support must be given to the Institute by both the government and Nigerian private sector saying “it is what you invest that you harvest, and where there is no investment, the harvest is always small, but my prayer and hope is that Nigeria government, Nigerian private sector must begin to invest more and more in tree crops so as to prevent from dependency  on outsiders to produce what we will consume”

CRIN boss emphasized the need to support the expansion of cocoa in the country with injection of youths to replace the older farmers saying the increase in the global demand for chocolate consumption is a good index of measurement which must propel the increase in production using improved varieties. He stated that “cocoa worldwide is good commodity for commerce. Why? India is in love with chocolate, China also, and by year 2020, there will be shortage of cocoa up to one million metric ton. The numbers of countries that must produce this cocoa includes Nigeria which is the fourth position in the world rating and this is the reason why support must be given for its expansion so as to meet the higher demand”

On youth employment, Prof Akoroda demanded more motivation by way of reduction on cost of production, processing, transportation and marketing saying ” present owners of cocoa farms are old and needed replacement. When they retired, to whom do they hand over the work? This should be a priority issue for government, private sector and farmers themselves. I think I am convinced that except you have enough facility for young entrepreneur to enter cocoa industry, there will be a time when old ones will step aside and there will be nobody to continue the cocoa revolution that has already started”

Speaking on grafting of new breeds of cocoa with the old ones he said that “we know that the old farms can be rehabilitated. New cocoa varieties can be grafted into the old ones. We do not have to cut off the old plantation. When the new one grows and develop, then you can prone out the old shots so as to allow the new shots of the new varieties to grow. Doing this will make both the old trees and the new breeds to be useful”

On his achievements since 2012 he said that “since we came in 2012 till now, at least over 15 million planted high breed cocoa materials have been given out to farmers across the producing states of the federation. We can also say the improved technologies knowledge on cocoa and other mandate crops have been transferred through training to beneficiaries in the rural areas through the train the trainers’ process. If you want to talk about impact, we will say farmers are now better informed as they have better improved materials and skill on how to use them.

 So if CRIN has been able to give better know how and better materials, then we will say all that is expected of the Institute has been delivered. I will not say we have not improved the buildings, increased the laboratories and the roads are better. I will not say we now have more water supply, electricity with inverter and solar system. We have more computer system and our staffs are better aware of the International expectations”

The 39th annual conference of soil science society of Nigeria holds March 9th-13

The 39^th annual conference of the Soil Science Society of Nigeria (SSSN) comes up on March 9^th-13th at the multipurpose hall, Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara state where members and other stakeholders will be gathering to discuss on the theme “Managing Nigerian soils for food and nutrition security and climate change adaption and mitigation”

The conference will also be used to mark the 2015 international year for soils as the aim of the 39^th edition according to the National President of SSSN, Prof. Victor Chude is to provide an enabling platform for soil scientist, stakeholders and policy makers to discuss contemporary issues as captured in the theme and sub theme.

The topical issues in the sub theme of the conference includes food and nutrition security in the face of climate change, Soil genesis, classification and land evaluation, tillage and soil conservation for enhance soil productivity, Socio-economic implication of soil conservation and food security, National soil policy and food

security, Livestock activities and soil fertility, Agro forestry practices, environmental management and food security, Sustainable nutrient management and agricultural development, Land, environment and climate change adaptation, land use, farming systems and agricultural development, Computer application in soil research (remote sensing, GIS, etc) and Oil chemistry, fertility and soil testing.

Already the association has presented a paper of memorandum supporting an act to establish the Nigeria Institute of soil science at the National Assembly as the enactment of this into an operational law is imperative to food security through adequate soil management, environmentally friendly fertilizer use and modern agronomics practices.

The association through his National President, Prof. Chude has expressed gratitude and appreciation to the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, for his unflinching support and also to both the Senate President and Chairman on agric committee at the upper house who their sensitivity to soil importance as regards food security has assisted the movement of the bill to next stage.

Cooperative experts brainstorm on enhancing curriculum for higher colleges.

As the need to enhance the rural communities financial status is gathering momentum through an organ of organized cooperatives, experts in the sector development through micro financing have gathered to put in place an effective curriculum that will ensure positive knowledge impartation on the small and medium scale entrepreneurs in the local areas thereby making fund available for their business in a standardized and regulated process. 

The meeting under the chairmanship of the director of cooperative department, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Dr. Dickson Okolo held at the Kaduna Federal College of Cooperative critically brainstorm on the appropriate curriculum that will be recommended for use in all the three colleges across the country and other polytechnics as the economics dynamics of using micro financing to drive a growing economics like ours is inevitable through a regulated cooperatives.  

In his remark, Dr. Okolo said that the importance of cooperative colleges to developing economics have been relegated thereby pointing the need to reposition all the Institutes as a knowledge based tools to drive micro rural financing where graduating students would have been better equipped to be useful in training and enhancing small and medium scale enterprises in the rural areas adding that a more comprehensive and standard curriculum to achieve this must be put in place.

Dr. Okolo pointed that research conducted on the colleges revealed that the curriculum being used for the past years have not been reviewed to meet the economics dynamics of micro financing to  small and medium enterprise in the rural communities adding the “ the colleges have no autonomy of themselves to operate effectively and in the face of the economic debase of the country, there is need to ensure that the positive impact of it trickles down to our villagers through a well organized micro financing cooperatives that will enable fund availability to them”

He therefore crave for proactive contribution to the development of the new curriculum for the colleges that will address the issue of rural financing and better repositioning of the Institutes in a way that will attract more students to take career in rural financing and cooperative development in growing the economy.

Architect T. O Adekunle from National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) emphasized on the need for standardization of any process thereby enjoining the stakeholders to bring constructive contributions that will ensure standard in the practice of small and medium enterprises in moving our economy forward through a detailed curriculum for our colleges and polytechnics.

Also in her speech, the Acting Provost of the college, Hajiya Aisha Ismail Ishaq commended the proactiveness of the Dr. Okolo in the repositioning of all the entire areas of cooperative organs in the federation adding that his efforts has been greatly felt in all the colleges added that the meeting is expected to come up with a well articulated curriculum that will address the problem of accessing rural credits in a sustainable way of reducing poverty at the local communities of Nigeria.

USAID scaling up the production of groundnut and cowpea

United State Agency for International Development (USAID) in its determination to ensure future food security in Nigeria has already commenced financing plan to scale up the production of groundnut and cowpea in five and three pilot states respectively in the country  with ICRISAT and IITA driving the programme in holistic manner of value addition through processing and marketing.

The groundnut scaling up according to the USAID programme is meant for Sokoto, Kebbi, Kastina, Jigawa, and Kano while cowpea is for Sokoto, Kano and katsina all in the North West geo political region.

In a meeting held last month of Tahir Guest Place, Kano where stakeholders brainstorm on gray areas of production, processing and marketing that could be injected into the programme for the purpose of better competitive products that will enhance the economic power of farmers and other people at the value chain of groundnut and cowpea is to be sponsored USAID. 

The programme will promote the use of improved varieties of groundnut and cowpea among the farmers with other modern technologies that will enhance standard quality in a competitive global market just as demonstration techniques will be adopted to train farmers, processors and marketers in all the participating states.