The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) has entered into partnership with Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomosho Oyo State. The partnership is in line with the renewed commitment of NALDA to support the present administration’s drive to ensure food security for the nation. Currently, result from a 60-acre maize farm under the partnership, which has not yet been harvested, is motivating the university to request more and diversification into livestock production, especially to revamp its 3000 broiler production crumbling facilities on campus.
While thanking NALDA management for granting the university access to the partnership, Dean of the university’s faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Samuel A. Babarinde, described the collaboration as “very fruitful and promising,” adding that “we started with maize as the major crop and we look forward to possible enlargement of that partnership in the future.”
As part of the collaboration, the university released 60 acres of land for farming and the labour force needed to carry out agricultural production activities utilizing its 400 Level internship students.
NALDA supplied all the necessary equipment, including tractors, harrows, boom sprayers, planters, harvesters, and maize shellers including fertilizer, seeds, and agrochemicals for the production process.
He described the relationship as “graciously timely,” pointing out that without it; their 400 Level internship students during their practical year would not have access to such agricultural mechanization.
Prof. Tonyi Peter Abegunrin, an Agricultural Engineering expert with a specialisation on irrigation and allied operations, who has also brought in a PhD student to conduct research, stated that the farm is large enough to carry out useful research.
“If NALDA has not come, we may not have a farm of this size for such research in our university.
Now, we don’t need to take our students out of the university before they can see the practical views of what we teach in the class and mechanization encourages specialisation,” he said.
Prof Abegunrin pleaded with NALDA to assist the university with irrigation facilities, including water collection technology, noting that two industrial boreholes could provide enough water to irrigate the field. This will increase crop and vegetable production in the off-season.
In another development, NALDA has also entered into a collaborative arrangement with the Nigeria Farmers’ Group & Cooperative Society (NFGCS) located in Kotona Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.
The partnership with the group resulted in the production of rice on a 100 hectares of land.
NALDA provided all the needed inputs from Fertilizers, to seeds and mechanization while NFGCS managed the farm.
Recently, NALDA officials and journalists visited the 100-hectare farm to observe harvest activities. A noteworthy outcome of the visit was that the partnership is increasing production, as the planted faro 44 and 59 produced excellent seeds that is targeted to yield over 300 tonnes of paddy.
Speaking to reporters on the farm, the administrative officer, Mr. Babalota, stated that NALDA was able to provide the farm with machinery and the inputs it needed to produce rice because of the collaboration.
He added that harvesting is at various stages after which, depending on the arrangement with NALDA, processing will begin because the farm is an integrated farm with processing facilities on site.
He said that if the partnership with NALDA is expanded, the farm will like to embark on irrigation farming using the dam, which the farm built about two years ago to produce not only rice but also maize and other vegetables.
Speaking about the mechanization of the farm, Ms. Hope Christopher, the NFGCS Chief Operations Officer, stated that it has made it easier to handle the challenges associated with manual labour.
Ms Hope said the mechanization process made harvesting easier, cost effective and more efficient.