Last Updated on April 30, 2026 by AgriAxis.ng
By Idang Alibi
After providing the names and locations of all the agricultural institutions in our country in our piece entitled The Scandal that is our Agricultural Schools published in this platform last week, we said that it does appear as if the more agricultural institutions we establish, the hungrier we become as a nation. We also submitted, among others, that in some good old days of the past, we fared better when we did not have all these schools of agriculture. Our reliable farmers with their ever reliable hoes and knives fed us admirably well. We said also that the schools of agriculture we have now are no more than a big scandal.
We then asked the questions: what is happening to us? Have we offended some gods of the land unknown and unknowable to us? We finally came to a conclusion that there is an urgent need for us to have a rethink about the whole issue of how to feed ourselves and ensure also that agriculture becomes a big venture that fetches us big money and meaningfully engages those of our citizens who choose to pursue it and not produce glorified educated illiterate farmers that the schools we have now produce.
In the late 70s and early 80s, we used to talk about town meeting the gown. This has not happened in our interesting country. Rather, when town meets the gown, it changes the gown to become a well starched outfit that becomes disdainful of farm work; of the gown man fearing he would dirty his hands and his gown. That is why we are still dependent on the old time farmer that has been feeding us since the days of Creation.
It is therefore clear that what we now need is a completely new mindset. Perhaps, if we set up an agric school, we should give it a target of the precise tons/quantity of foods, veggies and medicinal plants it should produce yearly and bring to the market. Its efforts shall be measurable and verifiable. And this annual production target must be met by both the students and their lecturers and support staff. If this is not done, the following should be observed:
- No student will graduate with a certificate from such a school
No academic staff should be promoted in that school. What will you promote them for if they do not fulfill the purpose for which they were established?
No non academic staff should earn a monthly salary from the school’s account
An academic staff should only earn his professorship based on the production of the food ratio allocated to his or her school in addition to meeting other major academic studies of an identified farming problem
In addition to measures outlined above, the curricula of our agricultural institutions should be reviewed and oriented to address all the real and not academic food problems we have. What is more, each of the schools should be made to specialize on one food crop and not allowed to be jack of all crops and master of none as is the case now. Let it be known that a particular agric school is an expert on rice; another’s specialty is on yams while yet another’s is focused on cassava and so on and so forth.
All degrees, Master’s and doctoral dissertations of all our agricultural institutions must be based on the staples we need for our daily survival. A doctoral dissertation should, for instance, be based on founding an infant formula for nursing infant children of poor parents. Another should be on finding a feeding formula for old age diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, prostrate challenges for ageing men, hot flushes in menopausal women. Another should be on a weaning formula for 3-yer old babies.
There are some diseases in the world today that are boldly identified as the Black man’s diseases. Some, if not all of them, can be cured or managed by some food, fruits and vegetables all of which we have. Our food researchers, educators and processors should, therefore, be tasked to produce some of these food remedies for domestic consumption to help heal us of our specific diseases. One of them is prostrate challenge in middle age African men. A food formula for addressing this affliction should be an urgent preoccupation of our agricultural schools
All agricultural schools must be operated on a matching fund grant agreement or formula. The authority that has founded the school will give the school a quarterly grant that exactly matches an agreed percentage of what the school is able to generate from its agricultural production, processing and packaging businesses. Any of these schools that is not able to do this, should extinct itself.
It is truly a scandal that this is not the case now. The schools must be told that they are established to be in business and to survive through doing food business and if this is not the case, kpai yourself or commit suicide. This specification will cause everyone involved in the school to sit up for you will know that your existence depends solely on what you do. If you lazy about, you have set yourself up for self extinction.
With this arrangement, the more food you produce or the more food packages you invent, the more income you get.
Some of our agric schools’ degree theses should be based on innovative discoveries of snacks and major meals. If that is observed, we may have interesting thesis titles such as ‘’Munching Delicacy for Ageing Men, a Valentine Special from Akon-Nike Federal University of Agriculture’’, ‘’Plantain Munchies for Menopausal Women, a special delicacy of the Federal University of Agric, Makurdi for African Women of Substance’’.
Also when these schools become more focused and serious minded we shall be getting academic papers with titles such as ‘’Arresting Crops and Vegetables going into Extinction: a Bold Initiative to Preserve Five Plants and Veggies’’, ‘’The Impact of Selected Home Grown Herbs and Shrubs on High Blood Pressure, Diabetes and Arthritis’’, ‘’Causes of Tooth Decay in Nigerian and African Children: A suggested Remedy’’. Let us have a bold rethink on our agric schools and I bet that we shall have a swell time with what will come out from them.
Know the Author
Idang Alibi is a seasoned Nigerian journalist and editor, with a background that includes roles at the Sunday Chronicle (Calabar) and Daily Trust. He currently contributes analytical and opinion articles to the 21st Century Chronicle.
