Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, has tasked farmers and agriculturists in general to consider introducing technological innovations into their farming practices to tackle food scarcity in the country.

Kyari made the call on Wednesday at the ongoing 9th Annual Conference and 68th Annual General Meeting of the Association of Deans of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities (ADAN), held in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.

Speaking at the event which is being held at the Federal University of Lafia and tagged ‘Transforming Agricultural Education for Sustainable Food Security and National Economic Growth’, Kyari, who was represented by the Director of the Federal Department of Agriculture Extension, Ayodele Olawumi, assured Nigerians of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to tackle food scarcity in the country.

Declaring the annual conference open, the minister noted that the Federal Government had initiated new agricultural innovations through the Renewed Hope Agenda, geared towards enhancing productivity among farmers, especially those in rural communities.

Kyari challenged the deans of agriculture at Nigerian universities to harmonise their curriculum in line with national policies to produce the next generation of agro professionals and innovators for sustainable food security in the country.

He stressed the importance of agriculture in achieving economic growth, maintaining that the present administration of President Bola Tinubu had prioritized the sector.

The minister, therefore, tasked all stakeholders in the agriculture sector to leverage the various policies and programmes of the federal government to address the challenges of food insecurity.

“Developing strategies to ensure food security through the promotion of training, research and innovative agricultural techniques, and enhancing agricultural entrepreneurship and job creation are some of the ways to modernise the agricultural sector of the country.

“Under President Bola Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda, we will continue to work towards ensuring that Nigerians have enough food, through digital agriculture and the various technological innovations,” he added.

Speaking on the theme, “Capacity Building and Entrepreneurship Development for Agricultural Transformation”, the keynote speaker, Professor Abu Godwin, noted that the under-funding of agricultural institutions had severely constrained the institutions from developing world-class training and research capabilities.

He lamented that many faculties of agriculture operate with obsolete equipment and have poorly maintained laboratories and inadequate demonstration farms, which creates a sharp contrast between classroom theory and the reality of modern agriculture best practices.

Professor Godwin, therefore, emphasised the need for a paradigm shift in agricultural education to address the challenges of food security and national economic growth.

Also speaking, the president of the Association of Deans of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities, Professor James Joyeoba, lamented that the current system of agriculture education in the country is faced with significant challenges, hence the need for the urgent transformation of agriculture education to empower more Nigerians, especially the youth and women, with the practical knowledge on how to enhance crop and livestock production.

The vice chancellor of the Federal University of Lafia, Professor Shehu Abdul Rahman, earlier in his welcome address, urged the participants to be innovative in sharing ideas in order to identify strategies that could help to improve agricultural production for food security and the economic development of the country.