Peeping at the Research and
Development Centre: IAR is Perfecting Agricultural Products Development
Research is the
key to unlocking the huge potential and bridging the productivity gaps in
various commodities in the Nigerian agricultural production system. Under the
auspices of the Federal Government, Nigeria has 14 commodities-based Research
Institutes and four Agricultural support service providers and coordinating and
supervisory body. These do not include states owned agricultural research
Institutes. As part of
Nigerian structure to develop agriculture, the 14 commodities based NARIs are
mandated to genetically improve their mandate crops, develop their improved
production, Processing and utilization technologies as well as develop
preventive and curative measures against environmental hazards associated with
farming system. Each of the 14 NARIs were allocated commodities, which they
have comparative advantages based on their ecological locations. All the major
agricultural commodities being produced in Nigeria are covered by these NARIs.
Similarly, The 4 NARIs, providers of Agricultural Support Services are NAERLS
Zaria, NCAM Ilorin, ARMTI Ilorin and NVRI Vom near Jos. The major mandate of NAERLS is to provide
Extension and Liaison Services, NCAM has a major of developing technologies for
Mechanizing Nigerian Agriculture while ARMTI is mandated to identify managerial
needs/Problems and develop appropriate interventions to address them. VOM is
mandated to identify animal diseases, develop their treatment and control, and
production of animal vaccines against diseases.
Agricultural product development is a
technique involving production of agricultural commodity, transforming it to
useful product as ready-made food for consumption or to other useful product to
mankind. This technique involves stages that are related and depended on each
other. The stages are production, post-harvest handling, storage,
conservation, processing, marketing and utilization. The stages are not only
interrelated, overlapped and interlocked but could be planned and done in a
chain series. That is why they are code named “value chain” of a given
commodity. In the recent past, National Agricultural Research Institutes
(NARIs) whose major mandates are improvement of crops genetic and production
practices were concentrating their research activities to production with less
emphasis on the postproduction processes. However, the economic downturn and
the concern for economic diversification are making NARIs to give the required
emphasis to processing, handling, marketing and utilization of their mandates
crops. One of such NARIs is Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) located
in Samaru – Zaria, Kaduna state.
Institute
for Agricultural Research (IAR), one of the 14 commodities based research
centre is assiduously making effort in agricultural product development. IAR is
one of the research centres of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. It was
established in 1922 as the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture of the
defunct Northern Region, It is located on latitude 11 degree North and
longitude 7 degree East, some 15kms from Zaria town and in the North-West of
the Main Campus Ahmadu Bello University, Samaru. One of the Nigerian Laws
transferred the Institute to Ahmadu Bello University, as a Research Institute
on 4th October 1962. Initially, the Institute was assigned the responsibility
of conducting research for the Northern States in conjunction with Ministry of
Agricultural and Natural Resources of each state. Presently, IAR has three
Research Outstations as Agricultural Research Station (ARS) located at Kano in
Kano State, Kadawa, Kano State and Irrigation Research Station, Talata Mafara,
Zamfara State.
By April,
1987 following the reorganization of National Research Systems in the country,
IAR was mandated to conduct research on genetic improvement of sorghum, cowpea
groundnut, cotton, sunflower and later maize, castor, Artemisia and jatropha.
The Institute was mandated to address problems of all agricultural food crops
production in the North West Agro-ecological zone. The Zone covers seven
states; Jigawa, Kaduna Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara States. In
particular, the Institute is to address problems of farming system, adaptation
of introduced and improved crop varieties/cultivars, development and testing of
pest and disease control measures. Others problems assigned to the Institute
were to device strategies for addressing the Socio-economic problems of
agricultural production, soil fertility, soil stabilization, and irrigated
crops production. Another important mandate for IAR is the design and
fabrication of simple agricultural implements and equipment. Recently, IAR created
a product Development Research Programme with mandates:
i.
To determine nutritional and biological value of
the IAR mandate crops,
ii.
To assess the suitability of the crops for
further industrial processing while improving the technology of local food
processing
iii.
To monitor foods and feeds produced from these
crops for toxic contaminants.
The IAR
mandates crops cut across cereals, grain legumes, horticultural and oil crops
making them perfect for undertake the product development to conclusion. What are
the breakthroughs of IAR in agricultural products development?
Some of
the achievements recorded are the development of composite products and their characterization
for nutritional and anti-nutritional values. The products are maize composite
bread, cakes, cookies, meat-pie and Chin-chin. IAR was also able to produce
these products from millet composite, sorghum composite, cassava composite,
sweet potato composite and tiger nut composite. Maize and sorghum are major cereal crops
massively produced by the savanna zone of Nigeria whose production estimates
are between 4 and 6 million metric tons. The crops are major sources of
protein, carbohydrate, minerals and vitamins. These achievements of making bread,
cakes, cookies, meat-pie and Chin-chin from maize, sweet potato, cassava, tiger
nut composite flours are giant stride by IAR. Hitherto, these products were
only known to be produce from wheat composite flour, which had to be imported
with hard earned foreign exchange. This is a golden opportunity for agro-allied
industries and local bakers to commercially produce these products for the
nation. It will certainly save the country the huge foreign exchange at this
period of economic recession and may even earn external revenue to the country
through exportation to the neighboring countries. Still on the food products,
works are ongoing in the development of peanut butter spread, peanut butter
chocolate, cocoanut candy, peanut cookies, and cowpea strips among others.
Another
area of focus by IAR is characterization of Nigerian jatropha for the
production of biodiesel. It is one of the Institute’s research activities in
the genetic improvement of jatropha for high oil content and quality for
biodiesel production as well as value addition for use as seedcake to produce
animal feeds. Seeds from 57 lines of jatropha germplasm were analyzed for their
biofuel content as well as other physical and chemical properties, which could
provide different usages of the crop. The results of the proximate analysis of
57 jatropha lines indicate that the mean percentages of ash, oil, carbohydrate,
protein and fibra were 2.6, 37.6, 35.4, 16.3 and 22,1, respectively.
Consequently, it could be concluded that jatropha, in addition to biofuel, has
potential for making seed cake formulation because of the high protein,
carbohydrate and ash content, if its toxicity can be controlled, perhaps
through fermentation.
The
efforts made by IAR in agricultural product development are commendable but
there is need for the agro-allied industries to take the gauntlet for
commercialization of the products and make them available to end-users. It is
high time that the Federal government formulates a policy to compel industries
to use the prototypes products developed by our research centres for
commercialization. Alongside the policy, incentives could be provided to
industries for using our indigenous innovations and research results that were
found viable. This has numerous advantages; strengthening the research centres
through patronage, increase productivity of the centres and industries, boost
the nation economy and creating jobs opportunities to many Nigerians and
foreigners. No doubt, IAR has demonstrated her capability to produce viability products;
the ball is in the court of policy makers and industries. Will they kick it?
Nigeria is tired of importing what it can produce in abundance
