The long awaited partnership between the Centre and the Abuja based Chinese agribusiness company Green Agriculture West Africa Limited (GAWAL) as the two signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a historic mutually beneficial journey.
Rector of the Polytechnic, Arc. Sanusi Waziri Gumau in company of the Centre Director Dr Kolawole Richard and his Deputy Dr. Aliyu Gadam signed the MoU on 23rd November, 2022 at Headquarters of GAWAL in Bwari, Abuja.
It will be recalled that earlier on September 27, 2022 the Centre’s Deputy Director, Dr. Aliyu Mohammed and the Head of Technical Dr. Adamu Wakili visited Green Agriculture West Africa Ltd to discuss areas of collaboration with the management of the Chinese company in Abuja.
GAWAL and Centre of Excellence agreed to collaborate in the following four aspects:
CROP SEEDS DEALERSHIP
As one of the large-scale seed companies in Nigeria, GAWAL has supplied over 20,000 MT quality seeds to Nigeria farmers in over 30 states. By means of cooperating with Nigerian farmers and developing them as its outgrowers through the training on the rice and maize seed production techniques, GAWAL has a seed production capacity of 10,000 MT per year. Because of the high yield and good quality, GAWAL’s seeds have been widely recognized among Nigerian farmers, especially GAWAL R1 which is a new rice variety registered in Nigeria, with an average yield of about 30% higher than the most popular Nigerian rice variety. In view of this, GAWAL wishes to cooperate with TCoEIFS on crop seeds. To start with, GAWAL authorizes Centre of Excellence to be its seed dealer in Bauchi state, and Centre of Excellence will market the seeds in the North East of Nigeria. When the sales go up and a large quantity of seeds is demanded in the northeast region, GAWAL will partner with Centre of Excellence for the establishment of a seed production base in Bauchi state.
AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY
Agricultural machinery sales and service is one of GAWAL’s core businesses. GAWAL can not only provide large-scale farming machinery such as tractors and their implements, combine harvester, seed processing machines etc., but also supply a wide variety of small agro machinery and equipment like seed planter, power tiller, thresher, winnower, transplanter and so on. Centre of Excellence wishes to buy some large-scale farming machinery from GAWAL for its use own. In addition, it also intends to introduce small farming tools supplied by GAWAL from China, especially the affordable ones and then promote and sell them to local farmers, which will generate the income to ensure the sustainable development of the Centre of Excellence. After supplying the agro machinery requested by Centre of Excellence, GAWAL promises to train the relevant personnel on operation, management and maintenance of the machines and equipment and provide the technical service as well.
AGRO-PROCESSING
Rice, maize, cassava, sesame and sorghum are the staple crops in Bauchi State. There is a great potential to be tapped in the processing of these staple crops. In GAWAL’s CAHAIP, some small-scale agro-processing lines including cooking oil processing, rice processing, biscuit, cassava/yam/maize flour and pepper flour production, have been established and are about to go into operation. TCoEIFS agreed to partner with GAWAL to copy the model from CAHAIP and introduce some agro-processing equipment targeting the staple crops in Bauchi State which can become another major source of income for the Centre of Excellence.
AGRICULTURAL TECHNICAL TRAINING
Agricultural technical training is the common business for both GAWAL and Centre of Excellence. From 2014 to 2019, GAWAL has implemented a number of the agricultural technical training programmes in Nigeria and trained over 650 governmental officials, technicians, farmer leaders and youths from across Nigeria in such areas as seed production, rice and vegetable cultivation, seed breeding technology, soil and fertilizer sciences, agricultural machinery, pest control, etc. These training programmes were conducted in both indoor training and field practice, and were well received by the participants and widely reported by the media. For TCoEIFS, it intends to produce young entrepreneurs through skill development which will serve as alternative means of livelihood for the country’s teeming unemployed youngsters as well as undergraduate students. In view of this, GAWAL and Centre of Excellence agreed to work closely with each other in this aspect. On one hand, one party can send experts to the other party to conduct the technical training, one the other hand, Centre of Excellence can send its selected students to be trained by GAWAL in its CAHAIP. The training programmes will focus on the most recent techniques in integrated farming so as to open the windows of opportunities for trainees to benefit and key into.
