TETFund inaugurates agricultural research platform for transformation

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund ( TETFund) in partnership with Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) has inaugurated Agricultural Research and Innovation Fellowship For Africa (ARIFA) platform in Nigeria.

The Executive Secretary, TETFund, Sonny Echono, who said this at the inauguration in Abuja on Monday, posited that the fund’s intervention in ARIFA would impact on faculties and departments across Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

Echono said it would also result to the delivery of science-led solutions for improved livelihoods while sustaining and advancing academic excellence.

He said that TETFund had supported over 120 scholars nominated by beneficiary institutions, with most of the Phase one nominees rounding off their programmes in 2023.

He added that the pre-admission process of the second phase of the programme had since commenced, while TETFund remained committed to supporting another 500 sets of fellows.

According to him, TETFund recognises ARIFA model as an innovative strategy for revitalising pedagogy that will strengthen the institutional capacities of Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.

This, he said, would contribute to building knowledge-based economy through its Centers of Excellence (CoE) across the country.

“As we celebrate the return of the first contingent of ARIFA Fellows, I will like to reiterate the commitment of the fund towards sustaining the momentum of the programme.

“This is, especially as we begin to see the impact of injecting the new fellows into our educational sector, who will power the engines of TETFund ARIFA Innovation Platforms (TAIPS) across the country.

“As you all know, agriculture is a critical sector in Nigeria and we must continue to invest in research and innovation to ensure sustainable growth and development.

“The ARIFA fellowship represents a strategic stride in this respect, and we are excited to have these highly trained fellows join us in this endeavour.

“The fellows will be applying their different expertise and knowledge in TAIPS, which will be valuable as we work to improve the productivity and competitiveness of our agricultural industry,” he said.

The executive secretary urged the researchers to be part of the innovation ecosystem that would strengthen Nigeria’s educational and agrifood systems.

On his part, the Executive Director for FARA, Dr Yemi Akinbamijo, said the inauguration of the programme was the beginning of realisation of ARIFA training in Brazil.

Akinbamijo said that ARIFA fellow returnee from Brazil would be planted back to their institutions, where they took off to Brazil.

He emphasised the importance of agriculture, saying that more than 80 per cent of the working population in the continent derived their livelihood from agriculture.

Speaking, one of the beneficiaries of the training, Jennifer Nwaiwu, commended the initiative, saying it would add to her experience in the area of research.

“I got a lot of experience and knowledge on better ways to do things and better ways to do research. I got to handle and use many improved technology to do agriculture and is a very big opportunity and I’m very grateful.

“This kind of training in career path is going to be very impactful because coming back from Brazil, we expect that the knowledge we’ve acquired, we will be implementing them here in Nigeria.

” This is considering the fact that Brazil and Nigeria are similar in climate wise,” she said.

ARIFA is aimed towards producing a new generation of fit-for purpose workforce to re-engineer the African agri-food sector to provide the change factor for rapid agricultural transformation in the next 10 years.

In the first phase of ARIFA, TETFund identified six institutions for the establishment of IPs, namely Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi , University of Benin, University of Lagos.

Others are Micheal Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, University of Maiduguri and University of Jos.