S/W 2018 REFILS: technologies transfer suffer in 2017

    Royal father advises youth on partnership

The Royal father of Alawowo of Awowo Owu Kingdom, Oba Abdul-Gafar Olasunkanmi Tijani  speaking to the stakeholders during the South-West 2018 Refils

The recently concluded Research Extension Farmers Input Linkage System (REFILS) under the coordination of Institute for Agricultural Research& Training (IAR&T) Moorplantation has revealed poor transfer of new improved technologies for enhanced productivity of farmers’ produce and other agro processors in the value chains of the crops, animals and livestock, even as the Royal father of Alawowo of Awowo Owu Kingdom, Oba Abdul-Gafar Olasunkanmi Tijani has advised the youths to explore business partnership in crops and animal productivity to create jobs without waiting for government for themselves.

The poor performance was described appalling to an extent that some states,like State of Osun has for sometimes not supporting extension activities that would have ensured best agronomics practices of improved technologies transferred to farmers and processors even as the presence of some of its ADPs members at the 2018 REFILs was not officially supported according to a source who said they have sponsored themselves to the event just to witness what was going on.

 REFILs Stakeholders condemned states’ government lip service to Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs) activities where the holding of the Monthly Technologies Review Meeting (MTRM) to train the trainers with improved technologies transfer to farmers has visually become impossible just as many extension officers wanted the charges on MTRM be reduced by the Research Institutes.

Observations were made on the reports presented by the ADPs from the region as not being economically inclined to spur government funding by some stakeholders who suggested the need to enhance the report formats for the ADPs in such a way that would reflect economic implications if funds were not timely released, and the expectations when timely released.

Apart from fund challenges, the issue of staff shortages for extension services   in the regionare daily increasing according to stakeholders’ position, reasoned being age retirement  without replacement, even as many of those still in the service are owed several allowances by Government.

In his speech the Executive Director, IAR&T, Prof J.A. Adediran expressed concern on the level of ADPs’ performance towards food security in the region as being drastically reduced due to poor funding on the part of government for research and extension services saying “ Your Excellencies’, while in some zones of the country, the activities which form the frame work work of Research-Extension-Farmers-Input-Linkage System have seriously dropped in content and context’’

Prof. Adediran commended the effort of the Institute and other NARIs saying the production constraints of farmers in the zone were identified through diagnosis survey with solutions saying that“ Proven technologies to combat the production challenges have been developed to remove such identified constraints from time to time using multi-disciplinary approach. Also, such technologies have been transferred to farmers in various states in the Monthly Technology Review Meeting (MTRM) through the ADPs. It is important to reiterate that to sustain the Refils system, the funding situation of the ADPs has to improved”

Also the remark of the Acting Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) Saidu Abubarka Madagwa ably represented by Acting Director, Yarama D. Ndirpaya stressed that in our drive as a nation for economic diversification from oil using agriculture and repositioning of the sector to commercialization would only be possible with the use of improved technologies by farmers through extension transfers.

According to Madagwa “Since improved technologies are critical to our achieving food security and significant growth and development, a forum like REFILs becomes an inevitable platform to achieving our desired goals. REFILs provides the platform where the much needed linkages and partnership between research, extension, farmers, input supplier and industry are incubated and developed. Therefore, in our quest to increase productivity and growth of the agricultural sector, strengthening the REFILs is key”

He also observed that the food availability was becoming insufficient to the growing population where farmers are still using primitive farming methods pointing that “Despite the fact that research in agriculture started in the country since 1861, its impact on the farming systems has not been significant until the late 1080s and 1990s.

The two speakers on the REFILs themes “Quality control and value addition: Panacea to Agricultural Marketing Challenges in Nigeria” both pondered on the need to ensure standard productivity of our agricultural produce through best agronomics practices from production, processing and packaging for global market saying these were the only ways the country could harness the great economic potentials in the sector for wealth and job creations.

Both Mr. Faleke Oluwagbile and Dr. Dele Oyediji  agreed that the rejection of most of our agricultural produce outside the country was as a result of not meeting required standard saying there is high demand for Nigerian produce outside the country which can be tapped into so as to create wealth for the people with standard being followed for global market.

However, the Royal father of the day Oba Abdul-Gafar Olasunkanmi Tijani advised the youths not to wait for government in the desire to achieve their dream in life, saying they should rather take advantages in the agricultural activities by going into productivity partnership for self-engagement and empowerment.

Oba Tijani said waiting for government to do business in Nigeria can be killing from his experience from Bank of Industry (BOI) who was never ready to assist his company until it discovered our determination to succeed through five man partnership that left just only two remain,  thereby advising the youths to explore partnership strategy to create job for themselves. Today all our agricultural products are sold at Shoprite and Spaar outlets with standard packaged.