Odedina iterated this yesterday during Cassava Adding Value for Africa Phase II (CAVAII) Project’s International Farmers’ Day on Cassava Production Enterprise, reiterating that training will help to maximize outputs in agriculture.
He pointed out that government’s interest in agriculture is geared towards employment generation, food security, poverty alleviation, raw materials for industries just to mention a few.
The Provost declared: “We are glad as agricultural colleges that our mandate and the interest of government has collapsed into one.”But he warned, “There can be no diversification without training. People don’t just jump into agriculture without knowing the value chain opportunities that are there.
“Diversification is not by mouth, it is by training people; nobody should tell the youths of this country to go into the land and farm without training them how to do it, without supporting them with inputs and technology.”
According to him: “Everybody in our 170 million population, claim to know the problems and way forward about agriculture, just like discussing football and weather.”
However, he said as professional and practitioner, the college has a body of experts that appreciate the facts that agriculture is technical and professional as any other field, emphasizing the need for intensive training programmes.
His words: “Without training, linkages and support, agriculture will remain unproductive and unattractive especially to youths, graduates, emerging farmers and investors.
“We are showing the stakeholders so many ways of making money along the value chain. You can’t do these things without technology, changing around ventures that were not profitable in the recent past for the benefits of the farmer.
He disclosed that the youths, ranging from the college, farm settlements in town to the secondary schools students, now actively involve in agriculture as producers, processors and marketers.
Odedina, who assured that the profitability demonstrated in cassava can take up one million value chain job opportunities, also affirmed farmers and investors will witness the unprecedented yield increase up to 50-60 tons/hectare.
He show-cased an array of modern technological equipment: electric garri grater that produces 5 tons per day, Pneumatic Garri Presser with 250kg per loading and the Rotary Garri Fryer that churns out 250kg per day.
Five CAVAII trainees from other African countries: Samuel Nyamekye (Ghana), Mrs. Guwela Veronica (Malawi), Ijala Tony (Uganda), Mrs. Chikumbeni Grace (Malawi) and a Tanzanian, declared that the last training session during their last visits have positive impacts in their country.
The Ugandan, Ijala, who mentioned that his country had experienced series of challenges and viral infection in cassava farming, enthused that the technical and technological knowledge adopted from Nigeria in his last two visits have yielded positive results.
