Last Updated on December 16, 2014 by admin

The Federal Government and stakeholders of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), have been advised to ensure adequate funding of research efforts under the policy, for the benefit of Nigerians. This advice was given during the Institute of Food Security, Environmental Resources and Agricultural Research (IFSERAR) Lecture titled, “Framework for Inter-Governmental Relations in the implementation of Nigeria’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda”, held recently.

According to the Guest Lecturer, Professor Aderibigbe Olomola, farming is a profession and business that required adequate funding to succeed and should be accorded the priority it deserved.The Senior Economist and Consultant at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), stated that research was the backbone of modern agriculture that drives productivity and competitiveness without which no agribusiness could thrive. He added that for the ATA to be sustained, there should be stability in the policy process to avoid unwarranted change.

Professor Olomola, who is a member of the Ministerial Policy Working Group on the ATA, added thatin the agricultural sector should be designed, developed and functioned in a sustainable manner, to be able to control the behaviour of individuals by making them to take decisions that would be in the best interest of the agricultural sector, as well as the Country in general. Earlier, the Chairman of the occasion and representative of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Bola Okuneye, described the Guest Lecturer as a ‘big fish’, adding that the lecture was held to examine the ways of establishing collaboration and workable partnership among all tiers of government in achieving the nation’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda.