Provost urges govt. to fund agric policies, initiatives

The Provost, Federal College of Agriculture, Ibadan, Dr Babajide Adelekan, on Sunday urged the Federal Government to fund agricultural policies and initiatives to achieve national food sufficiency.

Adelekan made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan.

The provost also stressed the need for the country to produce enough food to feed its large population as oil prize had crashed.

“The good thing is that Nigeria is blessed with arable resources for food production. We have competent people to implement the policies and initiatives to boost food production.

“All we need is for the government to back up and fund the sector and encourage agricultural institutes and colleges to achieve their mandates,’’ he said.

On the activities of the college, Adelekan said the institute had trained youths, retirees and women as part of effort to produce manpower to boost agriculture.

“Apart from direct production of food and tools, we also provide services to people and groups.

“We offer our services to people who have farms but do not have production facilities; we process and harvest for them and they pay us,” he said.
He assured that the college would train more people this year as part of effort to achieve its mandate.