Provost makes case for colleges of agriculture

• Seeks TETFUND Allocation, Protection Of School Land

The Provost of the Federal College of Agriculture, Akure (FECA), Dr. Adeola Odedina has called on governments at all levels and the public not to discriminate against the institution in terms of funding and preservation of its land mass.

Odedina said this, last week, at the launching of the institution’s 2016 planting season for bio-fortified food crops, cassava processing centre, Agroshop and restaurant with POS.

Lamenting that the institution among other institutions across the country that award National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) are excluded from benefitting from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) by an Act of Parliament, he urged policy makers to reverse the situation to make the schools move forward.

According to him: “The implication of this is that about 500, 000 youths in over 40 Colleges of Agriculture in the country will be studying Agriculture under poor infrastructural conditions, exodus of lecturers and non-attractiveness of agriculture as a vocation.”

The provost noted that if youths would be encouraged to utilise the agricultural opportunities in the country, then government must urgently address discrimination in the funding of tertiary agricultural education at the expense of agricultural technological institutions.

Disclosing that the innovations made in the school has attracted the government of Switzerland to partner with the school for Capacity Building for Agricultural Education in Nigeria (CBAEN), hinted that land grabbing has been another major challenge facing the institution.

His words: “Our land area is less than 10 per cent of the total land area of similar institutions in Ondo State. 60 per cent of our original land is gone, while the remaining 40 per cent is occupied by rocks and motor parks around. In any agricultural institution, anywhere in the world, there is no time the whole land area will be cultivated. What happens to fallowing, forest reserve resources, wildlife, conservation and others?”

The Provost appealed to the state government to help the school preserve its land.