By Angeline Mgbele, Senior Correspondent Abuja

The National Agricultural Extension & Research Liaison Services(NAERLs) is seeking the assistance of telecommunications sector regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC) in boosting its institutional capacity towards helping farmers access critical information online, real time.

The Executive Director of NAERLs, Professor Ike Ikani disclosed this recently when he led a 3-man delegation of the institute to the headquarters of the Nigerian Communications Commission as a way of strengthening inter-agency collaboration while pitching the agency to lend its support towards making agricultural extension services smarter.  Prof. Ikani, was appointed ED NAERLS  on Friday, October 30,  2020, and took over from Prof. Mohammed Khalid Othman.  Ikani has been the chairman of the Nigerian Agriculture Awards since its inception in 2014 and is a fellow of Agricultural Extension Society of Nigeria (AESON) and a Registered Animal Scientist(RAS).

He thanked NCC for availing it of short codes  which were already operational and wondered if farmers could get rebates for utilizing the short codes?

Head IT at NAERLs, Aregbe Bunmi Ezekiel explained that NAERLs was interested in seeing NCC intervene on its Adopted Villages programme and Farmers’ Helplines as well as building its capacity to reach out to start-ups who could come up with disruptive technologies to loft agriculture extension services in the country.  The Finance Officer of the Institute, Barrister Hadiza Kabir was also part of the NAERLs delegation.

Responding, Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity (DTSNI) at NCC, Dr. Bako Wakil alluded to the fact that NCC had indeed approved short codes 7288 and 7289 to the NAERLs.  On Rebates for utilizing the codes by farmers, Dr. Wakil said it was a form of social service which the Commission could discuss with service operators to allow ‘minimal charges’ to farmers.  ”We are able to assist you in this regard, but let us know how you want to operate first,” he said

Director, Consumer Affairs Bureau at NCC, Efosa Idehen, who had engaged the NAERLs team regarding possible areas for the Commission to intervene stated: “ You are to send us a copy of your presentation and a clearer letter addressed to Our Executive Vice Chairman and we would take it from there.”

The Adopted Village concept, which originated from India, was one of the innovations introduced into the Nigerian agricultural research by National Agricultural Research Project (NARP) in 1997. It was initiated in Nigeria to facilitate the trial of new research findings by scientists under the farmers’ environmental conditions. The advantage was to involve the farmers in farm technology trials either as observers, in the case of researcher-managed trials, or executors in the case of farmer-managed trials. The assumption was that involvement of farmers will, in turn, speed up the rate of adoption of agricultural technologies to other farmers since the trials also served as demonstration plot.

The government thus mandated all National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARIs) to establish adopted villages and schools within 20km distance from their respective head offices. Such villages and schools were to serve as laboratories for showcasing agricultural technologies developed by the research institutes. In this sense in 2009, the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN) reinvented the adopted villages as Agricultural Research Outreach Centres (AROCs).

 To this effect, the NAERLS developed and established 2 adopted villages and schools for its headquarters and 1 adopted village and school each for its then 5 zonal offices, thus having a total of 7 villages and 2 schools.  

At this period the 6th zonal office of the Institute had not been established. These were Sakadadi village and Nassarawan-Buhari in Sabon-Gari and Giwa LGAs (respectively) of Kaduna State (for the headquarter in Zaria); Tudun-Iya village, Funtua LGA of Katsina State (NW); Okolo village, Ibarapa East LGA of Oyo State (SW); Nwogi village, Katcha LGA of Niger State (NC); Shuwari village, Jere LGA of Borno State (NE); and Lodu-Imenyi village, Bende LGA of Abia State (SE).

In 2011, the West African Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP Nigeria) was established as an arm of ARCN to further promote and ensure access to demand-driven generation and dissemination of agricultural technologies by farmers. WAAP commenced funding of adopted villages and schools activities by June 2012, which further enhanced the adoption of more villages and schools. By March 2016, the number of adopted villages operated by NAERLS were above 45 and located around the head office and its 6 zonal offices across Nigeria.

The vision of NAERLS adopted village is: to provide demand-driven extension and sector-led services and contribute to realizing the national agricultural sector objectives. The mission is: to increase farmers’ access to information, knowledge and technology through effective, efficient, sustainable and demand-driven extension. The principles of the NAERLS adopted village operation are: to empower the farmer in agricultural technology process and build demand for both research and agricultural advisory services; target agricultural services to farmers and mainstream gender issues; to intensify productivity and specialization participatory processes in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, as well as managing natural resource productivity; and to increase institutional efficiency through better linkages between research, advisors and farmers.

The general objective is to improve the economic status and livelihood of the selected villages in the 6 agro-ecological zones of the country. The specific objectives are to:

1. Enhance food security and market competitiveness

2. Empower resource-poor farmers

3. Enhance job and self-employment opportunities for youths and women

4. Augment sustainable natural resource management efforts of the communities

The National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services grew out of the Specialist Services Section of the former Northern Nigeria Ministry of Agriculture to provide a formal link between the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) and the Ministry of Agriculture in 1963 as Research Liaison Section (RLS) to ensure that research results get to farmers in adoptable form. In 1968, following the dissolution of the regional structure, RLS was transferred to IAR and became known as Extension and Research Liaison Section (ERLS). Consequently, the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Council, in accordance with Statute 19, separated ERLS from IAR in 1975 and renamed it the Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (AERLS). Thus, AERLS, became an autonomous Institute within the Agricultural Complex of the University under the aegies of the then Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (FMST), similar to IAR.

Following the reorganization of the research institutes by the then Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, a number of changes in the mandates of several research institutes were made in April 1987. In recognition of its contribution to successful extension and research support services in the Northern States of Nigeria, AERLS thus earned a national mandate which transformed it to the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS). To execute its mandate effectively, NAERLS immediately established 5 zonal offices, one each in the 5 agro-ecological zones of Nigeria.

To effectively discharge its function of coordinating the overall planning and development of extension liaison activities throughout the country, NAERLS established 6 Zonal Offices. These are located in each of the 6 coordinating Research Institutes – National Root Crop Research Institute, Umudike; Institute for Agricultural Research and Training, Ibadan; National Cereals Research Institute, Badeggi; Lake Chad Research Institute, Maiduguri; Institute for Agricultural Research, Zaria.