Minister urges research institutes to commercialise research outputs
Minister urges research institutes to commercialise outputs
Research
By Mohammed Lawal
Zaria (Kaduna State), April 23, 2018 (NAN) The Minister of State for Agriculture, Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri, on Monday urged agricultural research institutes in the country to commercialise their outputs to enhance national growth and development.
Lokpobiri made the call at the Amadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, when the Directors of Agricultural Institutes in the university made presentations on their research findings.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the minister was in ABU on a facility tour of the three agricultural institutes in the institution.
He said commercialisation of research outputs would generate more funds for the institutes, apart from fast-tracking agricultural productivity in the country.
He said: “this is what the western nations are doing. A country like China is doing the same thing.
“Take your research outputs to the public; we will help you to do so. This will certainly grow our economy and the institutes will also have enough funds to do more researches.”
Lokpobiri observed that the only way to achieve self-sufficiency in agriculture was by investing in agricultural researches.
According to the minister there was no deliberate investment in agriculture by the previous administration.
He said that the present administration had increased budgetary allocation to the sector, and gave the assurance that it would sustain and increase funding for research work.
The minister also said that government would do its best to encourage and increase collaboration between research institutes and donor agencies to ameliorate funding constraints.
Lokpobiri appealed to industries and other stakeholders in the sector to patronise domestic research outputs rather than import similar ones.
He said that this would encourage researchers to do more and boost productivity as well.
He said ABU was known for research breakthroughs not only in Nigeria but in the whole of African continent.
Earlier in an address of welcome, Prof. Ibrahim Umar-Abubakar, the Director, Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), said the vision of the institute was to be an agricultural centre of excellence.
Umar-Abubakar said the mission of IAR was to generate and disseminate innovative technologies to end-users to ensure growth and development of agriculture.
The director identified mandate crops of the institute to include cotton, groundnut, sorghum, sunflower, maize and cowpea, among others.
He said the institute had out stations in Kano, Kadawa, Talatan Mafara and Makwa to enhance agricultural research and information dissemination.
NAN reports that other directors of institutes who made presentations were Prof. Mohammed Khalid-Othman, National Agricultural Research and Liaisons Services (NAERLS) and Prof. Clarence Lakpini, National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI). (NAN)
KLM/GOM/EMO
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Edited by Gregory Mmaduakolam/Ejike Obeta