African Development Bank logo
| credits: THE PUNCH
| credits: THE PUNCH
Nigeria
is to benefit from an African Development Bank initiative known as the
Support for Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops.
The Deputy Director-General, Partnerships
and Capacity Development, International Institute for Tropical
Agriculture, Mr. Kenton Dashiell, said the initiative would help narrow
the yield gap facing Africa’s strategic crops, even as most countries on
the continent embarked on agricultural reforms.
He observed that the SARD-SC would focus
mainly on maize, rice and wheat, stressing that these crops were of
strategic importance not just for Nigeria, but for Africa.
He spoke in Abuja during an interview with our correspondent at the SARD-SC maize, wheat and rice country launch.
Dashiell said, “The total figure given by
the African Development Bank for this project is approximately $63.4m
and it will run for five years. The outcomes of this project are in
three major areas.
“The first is improved technologies for
agricultural production in these three major commodities in Nigeria –
maize, wheat and rice. The second is in capacity development. Nigeria is
already blessed with good capacity to research and carryout extension
development work in these three crops, but we want to build that and
make it stronger than it is today.
“The third is dissemination to the people
of Nigeria; to the farmers, to processors and to everyone that is
involved in the production, marketing, processing and consumption of
these three commodities to deliver good results.”
He said the experts, during the
programme, would work with and build on the agricultural
transformational agenda of the Federal Government and implemented by the
Ministry of Agriculture.
“It is a very sound programme and we will
be building on that and using all types of tools to communicate to the
population of Nigeria,” he said.
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