e-extension: Sasakawa Global 2000 targets 5 year plan for Nigeria

Prof. Sani Miko, the Country Director, Sasakawa Global 2000 (SG 2000) says the organisation is targeting a five year plan to fully digitilise extension services across Nigeria.
He made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of a National Workshop organised by SG 2000 held in Zaria, Kaduna State.
NAN reports that the workshop with the theme: “Agricultural Research and Extension in Nigeria: Emerging Trend and Opportunities” was held at the National Agricultural Extension Research and Liaisons Services (NAERLS), Zaria.
Miko said that for the meantime they have to combine both e-extension and man-to-man extension, but “In the next five years in our strategic plan the e-extension would have been full front activities of SASAKAWA Africa Association.
“We are partnering with NAERLS through the farmers’ help line, we are also partnering with the Institute of International and Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan, in which we developed two apps, one for maize under the TAMASA, project taking maize to scale in Africa.
“We have developed that app which is made user-friendly for extension agents to advise farmers using the ICT, we are also working with IITA to develop another app for cassava which is also already at the destination level.
“We are talking with another lead company that will use a lot of digital information to provide information, so it is one of our key area of intervention from next year, God’s willing,” he said.
He lamented the inadequate number of extension officers in the country, adding that presently there were only about 14,000 extension workers attending to over 70 million farmers.
Miko said the essence of the workshop was to search for new ideas and proven technologies to move to the farmers.
The Country Director said: “This is an avenue where researchers and extension officers will rub minds to bring out emerging new ideas that we can package and take them to the farmers.
“The workshop will also build on the literature of research and extension in agriculture that can be useful for students and practicing farmers.
“This is because after the workshop papers presented will be sentisised, edited and put into a proceeding that can be a source of matirials.”
Declaring the workshop open, the Director, NAERLS, Prof. Mohammed Khalid-Othman said SG 2000 was an extended family of NAERLS, adding that, that was why “anywhere you see SG 2000, you will see us there.
“Because SG 2000 is helping us to do our job and Nigeria is so big, no organisation can do it alone, even when all of us put heads together to do it, you still find that there are other areas we cannot reach.
“SG 2000 also has a way of bringing more partners, meaning that as we put heads together we will be able to address the issues of Nigeria’s extension system,” he said.
While calling for more budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector, the Director advocated for more investment by private organisations into the sector.
In a goodwill message, the Director, Department of Agric Extension, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Abuja, Dr Karima Babangida said the ministry had been collaborating with SG 2000 for decades.
Babangida, who was represented by a Deputy Director, Hajiya Sugra Mahmud, described SG 2000 as worthy collaborators towards uplifting agricultural extension in the country.