TETFund Boss tasks Vice Chancellors on Agric transformation

The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, Sonny Echono says if Nigeria gets it right in agriculture, half of its problems will be solved.

This according to him, is because the sector remains the easiest means for job creation in the Country.

Emphasizing the importance of Agriculture, Echono called on Vice-chancellors of Nigerian Universities to apply more energy towards the actualisation of its transformation.

He made these known in Abuja at the Vice Chancellors’ roundtable on the implementation of the Agricultural Research and Innovation Fellowship for Africa, (ARIFA), with the theme: ‘building the post-vicosa symposium action plan.”

While urging them to operationalise the TETFund Centres of Excellence, (TCoE), as soon as possible, he stated that as the sector develops, the demand for personnel would increase and the universities would also improve their revenue.

He said there were countries that depended solely on agriculture and doing very well.

“Agriculture is the one resource that God has blessed Nigeria with, Echono said.

He stressed that Nigeria can learn a lot from Brazil through partnership given their track record in the area of agriculture.

The TETFUND Executive Secretary further noted that “everything is built through national food security and it is the responsibility of all Nigerians to ensure that it happens.”

“My charge to you is to make this a personal mission because I’m very confident that if will get it right in agriculture in this country,/half of our problems will be solved because it is the easiest means of creating jobs.

“Most of those who are being recruited into banditry, who are being recruited into the insurgency, if they are able to work on the land, they will perhaps prefer to do that.

“And if we can find modern ways of doing things that will significantly improve revenue because as the yield increase, of course revenues increases and it makes it more attractive,” he explained.

Echono said; “As we adopt new technology, develop our mechanismation and irrigation we will find opportunities through commercial agriculture and we will be able to absorb the graduates that will produce. Because most of the issue if you notice, more than 60% of those who graduate with agriculture go on to do other things with their lives because we don’t have commercial farming that can absorb this workforce we produced.

“I enjoin you to take this message and take this issue very seriously. There may be a few mistakes along the line but we should correct ourselves. We should operationalise the centres of excellence as quickly as we can,” he said.

Symposium

Also speaking, the Executive Secretary of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa, (FARA), Dr. Yemi Akinbamijo, said the workshop was to have an internationalisation process.

He said that the outcomes from the meeting would feed into Post-Vicosa Symposium Action Plan, holding at University of Lagos from 14th – 16th July.

Akinbamijo said the meeting would also focus on priority areas of demand for increased capacity in STEM, and the establishment of innovation platforms, among others.

Olusola Akintonde