Research Funding: How integrity helps IAR to survive

 

The Deputy Director (DD), Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) Prof. Nafiu Abdu has said the external funding support had really assisted the Institute especially in the last two years when only 30% of budget funding was released to all agencies to execute their capital projects including research.

Prof. Abdu who was standing in gap for his director at the 2026 annual research review and planning meeting workshop during the questions and answers session said that the Institute's integrity in the eyes of partners had tremendously assisted to overcome research mandate challenges execution we are witnessing today.

Food Farm News has asked the scientists how they have been surviving to meet with their crops mandate execution as being reflected by the each unit department of the Institute in spite of less than 30% budget funding being released to capital projects.

Responding, Prof. Abdu pointed that " The IAR integrity in its mandate crops execution had been of help to the financial funding we are getting to carry out immediate research to food security", added that the effort of the present director, Prof. Ado Yusuf to achieve a positive result was second to none.

Also speaking in support of the funding intervention, the assistant director, extension, monitoring and evaluation, Prof. A.I Sharifai pointed out that the Institute has been enjoying support from more than 120 third party partners stressed that their assistance had been very handy and helpful to modern research technology development in the institute.

Also responding to the question on feed back from the farming years of 2024/ 25 farmers' demand to the use of genetically modified crops, Prof. Inuwas S. Usman said that the demand for various varieties of transigient varieties were in high demand by farmers saying it was because of their better yield in the face of diseases and climate change challenges ( drought) in particular.

Prof. Usman said that " Contrary to people' view on GMOs, the farmers are increasingly demanding for the genetically modified crops like tela maize and others in view of their abilities to withstand stem borer and drought being occasioned by climate change challenges"

Meanwhile the speech of the IAR director, Prof. Ado Yusuf read by his deputy with the theme " Mainstreaming Climate Change in Agriculture: Strengthening Food Security and Economic Stability under the Renewed Hope Agenda" of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has pointed out the release of climate resilient crops already giving higher yield towards food security by the institute.

According to him " We at IAR are making frantic efforts within the meagre resources available to us to conduct research on our mandate crops as well as develop farmers' friendly technologies. In a bid to meet set targets for ourselves and the demands placed on us by the Federal Government as well as teeming farming communities nationwide, we have been developing and releasing almost on yearly basis new crop varieties to suit different ecologies, bearing in mind the challenging climate conditions"

" In view of this, to date, IAR has released climate resilient crops that tolerate drought, resistant to certain pests and diseases and improved crop yield by a range of 60-100%. IAR has been the only research institute in the country that has consistently released crop varieties for the Nigeria farmers in the last 10 decades. This year alone, we released six crop varieties comprising: four cowpeas ( SAMPEA 22, 23, 24 & 25), one maize variety ( SAMMAZ 78), one groundnut variety ( SAMNUT 30) in addition one variety of sorghum, four varieties of cotton and nine maize in collaboration with international and indigenous seed companies "

In his speech, the Vice-Chancellor ( VC),  ABU, Zaria, Prof. Adamu Ahmed ably represented congratulated the scientists at IAR for the relentless effort to ensuring improved technologies availability towards food security, pointed out that hunger and malnutrition must be eradicated with deliberate focus on problem solving research.

The VC said that " I hearty congratulate IAR in taking the lead with over 20 new crop varieties registered for release by the National Varietal Release Committee ( NVRC) last month in Ibadan.

He also called the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS), Sen. Abubarka Kyari to ensure timely release of funds to research work saying that agriculture required timeliness in view of inputs getting to farmers.

However, the activities of the states Agricultural Development Programs ( ADPs) presentation for the previous years showed a very poor funding on the part of Government to extension services that were supposed to assist farmers in high yield food production with the use of modern technologies and climate smart applications.

The states that presented reports included Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano while Kaduna sent a good will message.

Some of the resolutions taken in the communique issued include...

i. IAR research activities should remain farmers centred and data driven using climate models and stronger collaboration with national and international research institutions to provide small holder farmers with timely and reliable information for better decision making.

ii. It was resolved that renewed efforts should be made to ensure research outputs reach the last mile farmers while technology's guide should be developed in simple and user friendly language for easy understanding and adoption.

iii. They resolved that future technical presentations from all programs should be more farmers' oriented and less technical in content to enable participating stakeholders to derive practical take home benefits.

iv. The meeting resolved that catalogues of recently released climate resilient cowpea, maize and sorghum varieties should be developed and widely disseminated to the last mile farmers.

v. That a platform should be established to strengthen partnership with Associations in order to promote a stable value chain, and ensure farmers received fair value for their produce.