The
Executive Director (ED), National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison
Services (NAERLS), Prof. Mohammed Othman has said that the Community Base
Advisory Concept will develop the capacity of the farmers to reduce expenses on
extension services as new improved knowledge will be transferred to them for
further disseminations to others in the communities. Prof. Othman revealed this in his office
saying the concept would reduce extension cost across the country.
Prof. Othman
said the concept had already started last year with over 100,000 farmers from
Kaduna and Niger states under the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa
(AGRA), saying that it had been very successful, and that currently it would be
reaching out to places like Gombe and some other states that have interest.
He said that
the capacity of farmers have been developed to become community based extension
advisors, to complement the professional extension workers, and the farmers
themselves can benefit by getting information on newly improved technologies
along the value chain of the crops, as they would be able to share them with
other farmers.
“We are aware of the handicap of the Agric Development
Projects (ADPs) as regards meeting with the needs of farmers. Also we as a
National extension research liaison Agency has less than 1,000 staff to reach
out to 70 million farmers in this country, and that is why we have leveraged on
the Community Base Advisory Concept and the use of the Information Computer
Technology ( ICT) to get to more farmers” said Othman
He added
that farmers need to realize that they were benefitting from the community base
extension advisory therefore” the little contribution they will make will be
very important. Realizing the benefit of
the system will help them have easy access to best agricultural information
practice.’’
He stressed
that in the next few years most Nigerians would be aware of the services that
the Farmers National Help line is rendering.
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