By Ezra Musa
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Mohammad Abubakar, has inaugurated the North-West regional office of Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI) in Kaduna.
Abubakar said that the inauguration was part of the Federal Government’s agricultural transformation agenda, aimed at providing requisite training for rural farmers to boost food production.
He said that the institute would help the ministry to achieve its mandate of ensuring food security in crops, livestock and fisheries.
The minister said that the ministry had received most of its budgetary allocation and interventions to ensure that Nigeria could produce enough crops to feed the nation.
He said that the institute would bring the knowledge to the rural farmers who contribute 70 per cent of food production in the country.
Abubakar assured that government would replicate the training institute across the 36 states of the federation.
Speaking at the occasion, the Executive Director of ARMTI, Mr Olufemi Oladunni, appealed for more funds to enable the agricultural training institute carry out its mandate effectively.
He said that the budgetary provision released for one entity was being used to run four campuses and sites which, he said, were not good enough.
Oladunni, however, appreciated the Federal Government for the support, adding that more funding would enable the institute to do more and ensure the development of Nigeria’s agricultural sector through capacity building.
“Our rural development initiative alone has been transforming communities all over the nation but our major limitation is funding.
“I wish to state that ARMTI requires more funding so that it can do more.
“It is due to the resilience and resourcefulness deployed that the budgetary provision released for one entity is being used to run four campuses and sites. And, we are launching another one today,” he said.
Oladunni said that the institute pursued and obtained approval to expand its frontiers which led to the opening of regional training centres in all the geo-political zones in the country.
He said that the landmark was achieved within the last one year.
“I am glad that we are launching the North-West regional office today because two are already up and running.
“ARMTI’s drive to ensure the development of the Nigerian agricultural sector led to seeking ways to spread our impacts farther and wider.
“This led to putting up an additional component in our Abuja regional training and conference facility.
“It’s a 27 room hostel facility which was inaugurated and commissioned by the minister in 2022,” he said.
According to the executive director, the regional training centres was designed to deliver training programmes for trainers within each geo-political zone as well as develop methodologies and learning materials for them.
He said that the centres would also help state governments, through its ministries of agriculture and ADPs, to achieve more in economic development through agriculture.
In his goodwill message, Kaduna State Coordinator of the ministry, Dr Timkat Tonvah, commended government for the decentralisation of the institute to address the peculiarities in the value chain of each zone. (NAN)
