By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) says it is set to kick-start its Institute of Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
The institute, NALDA explained is aimed at supporting the growth and development of agriculture in Nigeria by transforming it into a modern and appealing career path for the youth.
It said the Institute will adopt a combination of practical training, specialized curriculum, cutting-edge technology, and entrepreneurial education in the field of agribusiness and agronomic practices.
As Nigeria faces the pressing challenge of an aging population of farmers, the NALDA Institute targets catching the youngsters early in life from the primary to the tertiary level by introducing them to Agribusiness early while also serving as a platform for professional research.
Speaking on the development, the Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne said the first campus of the institute will commence in September in Aba, Abia State.
He said the campus in Aba boasts a completed 600 capacity student sports complex, two administrative blocks, libraries and laboratories, a clinic, nine solar powered boreholes, 30 rooms hostel and four classroom blocks with a total of 24 classrooms.
“The Aba Campus also holds a 50,000 capacity fish pond, poultry pens, 5000 capacity Snail house, fish hatchery, 50 cage Grass cutter pens, crop fields, three tractors, hand held harvesters and nine boreholes to cater for the needs of both the farm and that of the institute,” Ikonne said at a recent media briefing.
“The institute has the approval of Mr. President and it is taking off in September. We have students that are going to start in September; the one in Abia is fully ready and commencing the 2024/2025 academic session this September.
“The one in Ogun is 99 per cent completed and they will commence academic activities by next year. The campus in Katsina is 89 per cent complete.
“These are projects that we initiated with the knowing that if we don’t catch them young into agriculture, agricultural production and agribusiness, Nigeria will continue to suffer food insecurity because the current generation of farmers are aging and retiring.
“This is why we came up with the NALDA Institute of agribusiness and entrepreneurship from primary to secondary to OND level.”
While reeling out the achievement of NALDA in the four years of his tenure as the Executive Secretary of NALDA, Prince Ikonne said he is proud of how far the authority has come.
Reminiscing on how he was handed NALDA to resuscitate in 2020 without an office or staff to work with, Ikonne said from reclaiming NALDA’s lands to partnering with states to empowering youths across the country, was done one step at a time.
He said the NALDA Institute will run government approved certificate courses in fishery, poultry, Snailery, and hatchery.
‘’While this will most importantly keep our youths gainfully self-employed, it is also a good source of generating revenue for the Institute.
‘’This training is not just theoretical, it is both theory and practical as the Institute has the Poultry, Hatchery, Snailery and Fishery units ready. Our plan is to have this initiative cut across all states of the federation,’’ he said.
On other initiatives he introduced to ensure massive food production in the country, Ikonne stated that NALDA embarked on the distribution of inputs such as seeds, herbicides, and pesticides, enough for the cultivation of one hectare of farm land across the country.
“Beneficiaries of the initiative which consists of mainly women and youth were trained on best agronomic practices for improved yields with over 10 states benefitting so far,” he said.
“This initiative began last year, we started distributing inputs where we give out bags of 10 kg that will help farmers to cultivate a hectare fully with all the inputs required for the cultivation of maize, rice and beans”
Aside from seeds, Ikonne noted that the Authority also provided poultry start-up packs to women in some states across the country.
Speaking on NALDA’s mechanization drive, Ikonne said the Authority has acquired five drones for aerial mapping and spraying of herbicides and pesticides.
“We have drones, you know, Mechanization is key in agriculture, making it easy. We have about five drones for aerial mapping and for spraying fertilizers and herbicides.
“So these are equipment that we have acquired outside of our tractors, combine harvesters, that we are using for large production, in states like Benue, we harvested from 200 hectares of rice last season.”
Prince Ikonne also disclosed that NALDA is currently collating data of farmers in Nigeria to ensure comprehensive data base of farmers and also ensure that only genuine farmers get needed government support.
“Now one critical thing that we have achieved here in NALDA is creating the data bank of farmers, Nigeria has never had a farmer based data bank.
“So every year, agricultural planning becomes a challeng because you don’t know who you’re planning for.
“So now that I came up with that concept and partnered with DSS to create a data bank, we have the server for capturing real farmers from various local governments and that process is ongoing.
“We have started capturing them as we give them input, we capture them and capture their land”
While reminiscing on the establishment of NALDA Integrated Farm Estates, Ikonne said the farm estates were established to create jobs opportunities along the agricultural value chain, from production, processing to marketing. READ ALSO:
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He said so far, NALDA farm estate has been established in Katsina, Imo and Borno states.
He noted that, that of Borno State was used to resettle returning Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and engage them gainfully in agriculture.
“In Borno state, we completed another big farm estate with housing, which was fully furnished, then those houses were allocated to the IDPs who are returning back to the state, we provided them with livestock’s, for them to go into animal production as well as fingerlings, and that is purely in Borno state”
“In Imo state, we were also able to resuscitate the Acharubo farm estate that also provided opportunity for a lot of youth, the youth from the community where the Farm estates are located.’’
