The Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, or ARCN, is taking its offices and services to rural farmers for quality service delivery to achieve efficient and sustainable food production.
Garba Sharubutu, ARCN's executive secretary, explained that the aim is to ensure that farmers get the best of the Council's services at their doorstep. He added that it is also designed to ensure there is no gap between the Council and Nigerian farmers.
"It is not a question [of] farmers not knowing where our research institutes are and where our outreach centres are; but a situation that we will now move to them rather than waiting in the office for farmers [to] come to us seeking information," Sharubutu said.
The professor also hinted that the federal government has promised to launch the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy or NATIP. He noted that ARCN has a significant role to play when the new agricultural policy is launched.
"NATIP is a policy that wants to bring innovations and technology into the system, and that is where the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria is going to play a prominent role," he said. "We are currently reviewing most of the innovations with [the] hope of actually sending them out to the field so that our farmers will access them more easily.
He said output centres would be established in rural communities to aid local farmers' access to NATIP and technology.
