By; SANI ALIYU
Promoting agricultural development in Nigeria is what the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) is doing to address the challenges farmers are experiencing as regards to the NIMET prediction on shortage of rainfall.
It is true the raining season is here again as usual, the IAR has been working towards creating more awareness among Nigerian farming communities on what is in stock in the institute in terms of technology, that improves seeds for enhanced farming. The institute has qualitative management practices that will be disseminated among stakeholders for better understanding.
The outcome of NIMET prediction in which the drought raising season or terminal, the experts suggestion is for farmers to plant early and immediate matured crop varieties that can be done very well with the length of the predict wet raining season.
These varieties are going to stay long enough by the time that the drought set in, they are almost matured so the repaying effect of this is short raining season will be highly minimized through the used of appropriate varieties.
IAR has sorghum, maize (cowpea) Beans, cotton and groundnut. In this season, its advised farmers to ensured that they don’t go for long season varieties otherwise if the prediction comes true, there is the likelihood that the effect of drought will be felt most especially in the area of reduced harvest.
The extension agents are aging in Nigeria which is true that farmers no longer enjoyed the comfort of the optimum number of the extension workers. It is the rural areas that use to have many of the state government but unfortunately, they have not replaced their extension agents.
Extension is the sole responsibility of state and local government but unfortunately, in recent years research institutes have adopted the use of technology to disseminate their information through which the institute interact with the farmers inorder to know what it takes and is expected of them (farmers).
The institute has also developed a farmer help line in which they disseminate informations in a very plain language understandable by the farmers also to interact with their technology dissemination through farmers organization such as All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) and Commodity Marketers, Growers Association in order to disseminate the available information to them for better understanding of what is expected of the farmers, in addition to bring in new technologies hoping that farmers will promote agricultural technology. There are approaches that is hoped will be most sustainable over the years in helping farmers to boost their agricultural productions.
It is, therefore, very important to call on our states and local governments to please invest in the recruitment and training of extension agents for testing and dissemination of new technologies to farmers for better agricultural yields in the country.
There is the need to do direct modification for the farmers from the grassroots closer to them along the line of the farmer associations
The farmers need to be held responsible for what they do by not opening offices that are not enough to have the intervention which have been the desired them effect the designed expected by the government.
In my opinion, one of the ways that slow down this is in theory. What has been put in place is ok in each cluster so that they will have a leader and each leader, there will be another anchor person on top in a state and likewise. For the bureaucracy of arranging this together without preparing early enough, the preparations start too late so that the procurement arrive sometimes around August and by that time the raining season has gone far and it will be okay for poultry.
The global crisis which is heading the production by farmers, there are many physical and biological problems that conventional times have not been able to provide any answers to. There are diseases of crops for which except the use of harmful insecticides that cannot control the diseases and insects, while there is new emerging science, the cutting age science refers to as biotechnology they have answers to some of these and IAR, just like the Federal Government of Nigeria believes in the potentials of this modern science called biotechnology through genetic engineering, the institute as a committed scientific with facilities and laboratories to see that Nigeria’s farming problems are curtailed through the deployment of modern scientists and the use of scientific approaches. IAR has developed a new variety that is resistant to that.
The institute has used scientific research to develop maize varieties that have high potentials to tolerate drought and also resist insect called Fall Army Worm which about five years ago, almost destroyed the maize industry in the country.
IAR is on the verge of releasing a variety that has resistance to the Fall Army Worm that farmers don’t have to spread insecticide in the genetic improvement that can cause cancer, the answer is the chemical. Why is it that Europeans are rejecting Nigerian beans? It is because they discovered that there is ruminant of chemical in it they had never rejected Nigerian beans before that time, which gives the natural ability to stand the condition.