Prof. Clarence Ayodele-Lakpini, the Executive Director of National Animal Production Research Institute ( NAPRI ) on Tuesday says the institute is collaborating with a Hungarian firm for genetic upgrade of its Shika brown chickens.
He made the disclosure while receiving the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Sen. Heineken Lokpobiri during a visit to the institute at Shika, Zaria, Kaduna State.
The minister was in Zaria on facility tour of agricultural institutes under Ahmadu Bello University ( ABU ), Zaria.
Ayodele-Lakpini said: “the Shika brown layer chickens developed by the institute needs genetic upgrade and we are in collaboration with Babola Techtrack FLT of Hungary for this purpose.
“We lack funds to be able to fulfill our part of the understanding and this has not been appropriated in our past budget, we need intervention from the ministry,” he pleaded.
The director says the institute conducts training for pastoralists and livestock entrepreneurs along the livestock value chain, adding that it is, however, constrained by the lack of classrooms, hostels and other training facilities.
He said “just On Monday afternoon, I received a call from the National Commission for Nomadic Education that they are coming to Zaria for training of 50 pastoralists and 50 other people from the ministry.
“They are looking for accommodation and we don’t have, they have to go to the hotel but they will take most of their time here in the institute.
“This is what we want, to be able to give services to the community, especially the pastoralists.”
He added that the institute was planning to extend its national artificial insemination programme to all states of the federation! stressing that “this is what we want to extend to all states of the federation but we can’t effectively use this tool to accelerate the national breeding programme.
“This is because we lack the liquid nitrogen plants for storage of semen as national gene bank: we are requesting the ministry to help us with this facility.”
The director said the institute would start all-year-round pasture production to curtail if not completely put an end to the importation of pasture, apart from enhancing animal production in Nigeria.
The minister said there was no more important time for NAPRI than now, “owing to what is happening in the country between farmers and herdsmen.
“Considering the frequent clashes between herdsmen and farmers in the country, the role of NAPRI in the agriculture sector has become more important.
“NAPRI has done so much despite the fact that it is not well funded: I didn’t know that the pastures being imported from abroad are already here in the institute.
“We actually spend money importing some of those pasture seeds while the seeds are available here. NAPRI itself has to do a lot more by publicising and educating Nigerians about what they have.”
The minister observed that if people at the ministry of agriculture didn’t know the existence of ‘alfalfa’ and other grass seeds at NAPRI, how then would the public know?.
“If anybody in the Ministry of Agriculture had known that these things existed in NAPRI, there was no way we could have advertised and give contract to people to import those pasture seeds into the country.
“There is no way we can do that when we can empower NAPRI to multiply,” he said.
The minister assured that the ministry would do everything possible to assist the institute within the confines of the budget to enable it to effectively discharge its responsibility toward achieving its mandate.
NAN