Pursue Tinubu’s agenda on food security, minister tells researchers 

• CRIN researchers present 2024 review

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, yesterday, urged researchers and institutes in the agricultural sector to align their research with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda on food security to have enough food to feed Nigerians.

Kyari emphasised that research was key to the achievement of the President’s food security agenda.

The minister, who was represented by the Executive Secretary of the Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria, Prof. Garba Hamidu Sharubutu, made the call during the ongoing three-day 2024 in-house Research Review of the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), Ibadan.

The programme has the theme: ‘Varietal Development of Cocoa, Kola, Coffee, Cashew and Tea for Sustainable Circular Economic Growth in Nigeria’.

The minister said: “The major problem with our in-house and other forms of activities is whether we can key into the programme of President Bola Tinubu Policy. You know very well that each administration has its policy and agenda, and of top priority of Bola Tinubu agenda is the issue of agricultural development as well as food security.”

He said: ‘’The instruction I had on my way is that for this year’s submission by the Honorable Minister, all the agricultural research institutes, including the University of Agriculture, Research Institutes, as well as colleges, must present in pictorial terms what is the progress that has been made from January till date, and this is the information that I have to carry back’’.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of CRIN, Dr. Patrick Adebola, said the programme was to review research of the organisation’s faculty and the desirability for funding to serve farmers effectively for higher yields.

In a keynote address, Dr Oluyemi Shittu of Johnvents Industries limited, alerted Nigerians to the crisis in cocoa production. Shittu urged Nigeria to learn from what happened to Ivory Coast in cocoa production and take drastic steps before the crisis got out of hand.  She called for collaboration between CRIN and industry players.