Doyens of Agricultural Sciences and Engineering across Nigerian Universities converged at Landmark University, Omu-Aran for the 2016 Association of Deans of Agriculture in Nigerian Universities (ADAN) Workshop Opening Ceremony on the 10th May, 2016. The four-day workshop tagged, “Agropreneurship: A Veritable Tool for Food Security and Economic Prosperity,” was aimed at establishing agricultural entrepreneurial studies in all Faculties of Agriculture in Nigeria by developing curriculum for the training of potential agropreneurs on entrepreneurial skills, general management and accounting in agro projects in a bid to rescue the nation from the throes of food insecurity and unemployment.

Declaring the Workshop open on behalf of the Chancellor of the University, Dr. David O. Oyedepo, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Aize Obayan welcomed ADAN executives and participants to the Workshop. The Vice-Chancellor expressed her delight in the epoch-making event which she described as apt because it was convened at the time when the nation is in dire need of clear-cut solutions to the hydra-headed food insecurity that has debased the black race. She reiterated the place of agriculture in the life of a people; hence the need for the participants to leverage on the enabling platform created by the association, in collaboration with the University, for active engagement with a view to provoking relevant solutions. She therefore believed that, with the pedigree of the executives of the association and other participants “directions for change” would be mapped out for new frontiers in agricultural development.

While introducing the Association which has been in existence for 60 years, the President, Professor F. Morenike David-Abraham, said that it is expedient to organize the 2016 Workshop for the appraisal of existing agro-academic paradigms of various institutions in order to see how to factor in the immediate needs required for the nation to successfully surmount its food security challenge. The workshop would however ensure the implementation of the new vision of agropreneurship that is considered critical for the advancement of Nigeria through the development of uniform curriculum in the various fields of specialization in agriculture and enhance collaborations with relevant research institutes and bodies in the training of students of agriculture to be self-reliant.

With the belief that “it takes a youth to convince a youth that agriculture is a business,” the Keynote Speaker, Mr. Innocent Ogirinye – Founder/National Coordinator of Youth Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture (YISA) Nigeria and Chief Executive Officer of Magpaty Farms – who is a youth and farmer par excellence established in his keynote address on the theme of the Workshop that the youths are the future of agriculture. It becomes advantageous that they be encouraged to have apposite mindset towards agriculture by creating enabling environment and impacting the practical knowledge of agriculture on them. He added that more than any other sector of the economy, a sustainable growth in agriculture would yield a significant reduction in poverty; he therefore warned that realizing food security and economic prosperity would be a mirage without requisite commitment and appreciable input to agriculture. He advised that there must be the political will to build a sustainable economy on agriculture against the current hardship oil has put the nation in recent time. Other highlighted areas for agro-economic change include educational curricula addition of on-farm practical to match classroom theoretical postulations; Research to soil to verify research outcomes; access to market to reduce post-harvest losses; availability of farm technology and access to credit facilities to encourage young farmers, students researches should be contemporary and consulted for implementations among others.