By Steve Agbota

The vision of every nation is to make research institutes a hub for capacity building and extension services to farmers, producing both for food and cash crops.
Wherever these services are used, farmers and investors turn the sector into a goldmine that will eventually translate to food surpluses.
Past and present Nigerian governments believe that in order to meet food security and reduce hunger various research institutes have to be established across the 36 states in the country.
Notable research institutes in the country include the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), Nigerian Institute for Oil-Palm Research (NIFOR), Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria (RRIN), Nigerian Institute for Oceanography & Marine Research (NIOMR), Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI) and National Cereal Research Institute (NCRI), among others.
But today, the dream is dieing rapidly, the vision blurred and the mission a mere statement of expression as majority of the institutes are mere shadows of themselves due to poor funding, corruption, poor government policy, late budget approval, bureaucracy and total neglect.
However, lack of technological framework to maintain research programmes, deficiencies in facilities and equipment and low agricultural research investment, among other factors, have made the notable structures on ground in most of the agricultural research institutes no longer functional.
Speaking with Daily Sun, the Intervention Manager, DFID GEMS4 Wholesale Retail Project, Abuja, Richard Ogundele, said that most of the research institutes do not get required funding from the government, which makes it impossible for them to function well.
Apart from funding problem, he said some of the institutes are not responding to farmers or the market at large in terms of consumers expectations and the international best practices expected of them.
He added: “On the other hand, the research institutes, after developing the results, are supposed to get them to the framers through extension delivery service easily but the extension services are also in bad shape. For farmers to benefit from the research institutes, extension delivery services must be fixed.
“The researches carried out at these institutes must be market driven. So it’s not just about developing a prototype, they must know which market and private sector person is interested in that prototype. When you work on a research and you get a prototype, take it up, proof read it and others would copy; that is the essence of research not just sit idle.”
He urged the research institutes to be more proactive and market driven by approaching industry players to market factors to them and try to find out the problems they are facing, saying that the research institutes would use the avenue as a basis to develop their research and whatever result they get, can be delivered to private sector operators who need it.
By doing this, he said the institutes would not be depending 100 per cent on government to fund them. He hinted that if the institutes could approach companies and ask them what they need, they can develop them and farmers would benefit from the results eventually.
Ogundele noted that if government was serious about diversifying the economy from oil to non-oil sector, it should allocate more funds to the sector just as it is stated by Maputo Declaration that 10 per cent of the national budget should go to agriculture.

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