Peeping at Research and
Development Centre: NAERLS Presents 2017 Agricultural Performance in Nigeria
As a tutor of Agricultural Engineering
courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, sometimes, I begin my
lecture of my new set of students with a question on food security. “Which is
worst form of insecurity to a humanity, military or food”? The class may be
momentarily silent with each student excogitating what should be the right
answer while gazing at me. Sensing the confusion, I reframe the question; what
is the biggest threat to a person; a loaded gun pointed at someone or
withdrawal of food to that person? Death is the limit and the maximum damage to
any form of insecurity; be it military, food, social and others, if one is to
make a choice of death, either by bullet/bomb or by starvation of food (food
insecurity), what is the best choice for a person? Dying by bullet within few
seconds or hunger that may last many weeks.
Many will choose bullet to avoid the unbearable pain cause by hunger
with full consciousness. There are evidences showing that animals that starve
to death experience a myriad of painful symptoms throughout each stage of their
physical deterioration. Several video films showing animals dying out of hunger
are pitiful, disgusting and not a pleasant show to watch.
How painful is death from starvation? After a few days without food, some
chemicals called “ketones” build up in the blood. These chemicals cause a mild
euphoria that serves as an anesthetic. The weakening brain also releases a
surge of feel-good hormones called endorphins at first week of starvation
without dehydration.
Starvation wreaks havoc on the body immune system, mostly on account of
an extreme deficiency of vitamins and minerals. Some people will become weak and die of
immune-related diseases during starvation. People can die of starvation in as
short as a three-week span, or as long as 70 days. During the Irish Hunger
Strikes of 1981, for example, ten men survived without food (drinking only
water) for periods ranging from 46 to 73 days. Starvation is generally brought
by food insecurity either due to natural calamity or man-made calamity. Food
insecurity could be sudden or gradual depending on the factors responsible for
its development. Whatever the case may be, a country must strive hard to avoid
the development of food insecurity, which is the worst form of insecurity to
the human race. This brings fore the question; how food secured is Nigeria?
Nigeria as a nation is capable of producing food to feed half of African continent;
yet, the country has not been producing enough to satisfactorily meet the needs
of her citizenry. However, there haven’t been reported cases of people dying
out of hunger in Nigeria but there are many families struggling to meet their
daily dietary needs. The country must work hard to avoid worst situation. How
can Nigeria achieve food security? A pre-requisite question, which can lead to
satisfactory answer to how Nigeria can achieve food security, is “what is the
agricultural performance of Nigeria? What are the performances of the different
agricultural components; livestock, fisheries, crops and their value chains?”
The
foregoing analysis and discussion bring the import of a research conducted by
National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) on the assessment
of Agricultural activities during the 2017 rainy season in Nigeria. The
research is tag “Agricultural Performance Survey (APS)”, which has been an annual
event that showcases the crops production estimates, challenges to farm inputs,
technologies adoption, and constraints to production, pests and diseases situation
and market information. An insight to answers on the food security questions is
readily available in the APS report. Although, NAERLS has been conducting APS
in the last three decades but the 2017 was uniquely done. The survey was
conducted with active involvement of key agencies in Agriculture and related
sectors such as National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Productivity
Centre (NPC), NARIs, NiMet and Famine Early Warning Service Network (FEWSNET),
Nigeria. Furthermore, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United
Nations (UN) provided sound support to the researchers through the provision of
200 Android tablets, which facilitated electronic data capture during survey.
No doubt, the involvement of the agencies raised the scope and quality of the 2017
exercise. A total of 21 agencies in addition to the states Agricultural
Development Projects (ADPs) across the nation participated in the 2017 APS. The
public presentation of the APS report was the epic of the momentous national
assignment conducted by NAELS and partners. The presentation was done after the
stakeholders’ validation workshop of the survey results. The Honorable Minister
of State, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heneiken
Lakpobiri publicly presented the result/report of 2017 APS before the important
stakeholders of Agricultural Development in Nigeria.
The
groundbreaking ceremony of the APS public presentation was made on 27th
February 2018 at HQ NAF Officers’ Mess and Suites, Kado, Abuja. Fifteen States
Commissioners of Agriculture or their representatives, Programme Managers of 23
States and FCT Agricultural Development Programmes witnessed the occasion.
Similarly, the International Developmental Agencies such as GIZ, IFAD, FEWSNET,
Alliance for Science, Ithaca, USA and relevant organizations graced the
historic event. The Minister, Dr. Lakpobiri was visibly elated for being the
first to make the public presentation of the APS for the use of general public
and indeed humanity. He stated that the APS report could serve as
knowledge-base for research and policy decisions in areas of crop pests, disease
situation, market situation, commodity price levels, agro-meteorological
conditions and agro-pastoral conditions across the country. The report is a
useful document for the guidance of policy, research and developmental efforts
of the communities across the nation. Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello
University (ABU), Zaria, Prof. Ibrahim Garba served as the chairman of the
occasion. NAERLS, the lead partner of the survey is one of the twelve research
centres under the auspices of ABU Zaria. This made the occasion to be very
special to Prof. Garba. He was thus; observably ecstatic as the survey achieves
two major goals he craves for ABU and NAERLS. One of the three cardinal goals
of a university is “community service” and the APS has perfectly achieved it. Additionally,
the survey has achieved one of the six national mandates of NAERLS as contains
in her Statue. In his opening remarks, Prof. Garba thanked the Minister for the
Ministry’s continuous support to research Institutes under ABU to discharge
their mandates in research and extension services. He assured the stakeholders
of NAERLS readiness to continue providing information, skill, technologies and
other extension services to farmers for the economic well being of citizens
through agriculture. He called on the stakeholders to take maximum benefits
provided by the 2017 APS, as a credible source of information for the
development of agriculture, water resources and environmental control.
What are
the contents of the APS report? How can these findings help Nigeria achieve
food security? Before then, what is NAERLS?
Historically,
NAERLS
was initially named "Research Liaison Services". It grew out of the
“Specialist Services” section of the then Northern Nigeria Ministry of
Agriculture. With the transfer of Institute for Agricultural Research IAR in
1962 to Ahmadu Bello University, when the university was created it became
imperative to establish an organ to provide a formal linkage between IAR and the
then Ministry of Agriculture of Northern Nigeria to ensure that research
results get to farmers in useful adoptable form. Thus, the Extension Research
Liaison Section (ERLS) was created in 1963 within IAR. In 1975, the Ahmadu
Bello University Council, in accordance with Statute 19, separated the ERLS
from IAR and renamed it the Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison
Services (AERLS). Thus, AERLS became an autonomous Institute within the
Agricultural Complex of the University under the aegis of the then Federal
Ministry of Science and Technology (FMST), similar to the parent Institute,
IAR. In 1987, some of the mandates of Research Institutes under the supervision
of the then Federal Ministry of Science and Technology were reorganized to
remove duplication and create synergy. In recognition of the then AERLS
contribution to the successful extension support services in the Northern
States of Nigeria, the Institute was given a national mandate, which metamorphosed
it to National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS).
Presently,
the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) fund NAERLS, while Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, provides
its staff. This makes NAERLS to be one among four research centres
with two supervisory bodies; FMARD and university. Surprisingly and pleasantly,
there is no conflict of interests and the two bodies are achieving their goals.
While FMARD is achieving agricultural extension policy and direction through
NAERLS, ABU uses both the human resources and infrastructure of NAERLS for
teaching, learning and community services. These tasks are accomplished because
of the mission and mandate of NAERLS from 1987 to date. (To be continued next week)
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