Lessons from Agricultural Policies and Programmes in Nigeria

The study reviewed several agricultural policies and programmes that were initiated in Nigeria. Through this,  objectives/goals, achievements as well as problems that  hindered realization of the dreams of the policies and programmes were known.  Gaps in their invention, execution and management were also identified. Solutions/recommendations were then proffered based on these gaps as lessons/guide for  future policies and programmes inventions. Key words: agriculture     policies          programmes         Nigeri

Integration and Conflict Management among Igbo Migrants Farmers and Odolu/Igalamela Indigenes of Kogi State Nigeria

Migrant farm workers suffer immensely from separation, isolaton, and discrimination  due to their poor integration into the host communities. The study was designed to asses the extent of integration, causes and management of conflict among migrant farmers and indigenous people of Odolu/Igalamela in Kogi state. A total of 100 respondents were purposively  selected from five out of nine town communities that make up Odolu/Igalamela ethnic region. A semi structured interview schedule was used to collect information from the respondents. Percentage, mean score and factor analysis were used to analyse the data obtained. The average number of years spent by the respondents in the destination area was 11.5 years. Irrespective of this number of years spent in the area, migrant farmers had not been properly integrated into the host communities. Majority of them (84.4%) had no land on freehold, although there were a number of intermarriages, there were also many cases of divorce (72%) and majority of them (75%) still bury their dead in the place of origin and hold ceremony at the same place. Majority (86%) of the migrant farmers had no title or leadership position in the destination area but belonged to migrant farmers association mainly for ceremonial and welfare purposes. There were no serious types/causes of conflict among migrant farmers but migrant farmers had conflicts with the indigenes mainly due to jealousy. These conflicts were resolved by formal, informal and interpersonal methods. The study emphasized the need to initiate policies that will favour the settlement of migrant farmers in the destination area as integration and consequent peaceful atmosphere ensure sustained agricultural production. Key words: Migrant Farmers  Agriculture   Integration   conflic

Human to machine innovation: does legal personhood and inventorship threshold offer any leeway?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to be a powerful tool in the research and development ecosystem. AI computers are invented to assist human invention and also created to invent. Where an AI is created to invent, through self-learning, they can interact with set of data presumably created by humans and as a result, a new patentable invention(s) can emerge. However, where the AI inventors and the resulting inventions sit within the inventorship legal framework, and the theory of legal personhood continues to raise legal and policy questions that challenge some underlying or presumed settled intellectual property law assumptions. One of the contentions has been the implications of the AI machine's autonomous inventions on the legislative and judicially established threshold for patent inventorship and the jurisprudential theory of legal personhood. The judicial decisions in the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), and Australia in the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS) patent applications have given judicial certainty on whether AI machine inventors qualify as inventors. However, they also reawakened the debate about the need to sustain patent incentives for AI innovations. This article draws from the inventorship threshold in the UK and US following the court decisions in the DABUS cases. The judicial decisions of courts and the administrative judgements of national Intellectual Property Offices (IPOs) relating to inventorship as well as the theory of legal personhood, reveal that an AI machine invention can be patent eligible. However, the machine does not satisfy the inventorship criteria and consequently is incapable of being named an inventor. On the other hand, the inventorship requirement of contemporaneous conception and reduction to practice meant that an AI owner/programmer may not satisfy the requirement of inventorship, even though he/she programmed the inventing machine. These decisions and judgements favour an implied situation where autonomous AI inventions could be without named inventors and owners. Consequently, those inventions will automatically form part of prior arts thereby rendering myriads of future human and AI inventions obvious or already existing in the public domain. In contributing to the discourse, this article advances the argument that to optimise the patent system, national IPOs and the courts can rely on ‘simultaneous conception and reduction to practice’ to recognise the programmer/owner or other relevant stakeholders in AI innovation as the inventor of AI autonomous inventions

Participatory Contact Farmer Selection: Survey of two Extension Circles in Enugu State, Nigeria

In the linear model of technology transfer the contact farmer (CF) is the primary link to farmers. This presupposes that the CF is selected based on a set of socio-economic categories. Recent criticisms of the performance of CFs are hinged on flaws in the selection process and advocate a participatory approach. This paper tested individual and group socio-metric nomination of potential contact farmers and compared the nominations with the CFs working in two extension circles. It was shown that only three (3) CFs out of eight (8) in the study appeared on both the individual and group nominations. It was recommended that EAs should have a rethink and rely more on the people both individually and in groups in nominating CFs because only farmers themselves know whom they interact and consult most frequently. [IJARD Vol.3 2002: 64-69

Pattern Of Alcohol Consumption And Its Effects On Livelihood In Selected Rural Communities Of Enugu State, Nigeria

The study examined alcohol consumption and its effects on economic and social livelihood of selected rural communities of Enugu State. One hundred and twenty randomly selected alcohol consuming heads of households and sixty four purposively selected non-alcohol consuming heads of household were used. Data were collected using structured interview schedule and analysed using percentage. Alcoholic beverages available were palm wine (100%), beer (100%), local gin (100%), spirit (89.2%), and burukutu (41.7%). Respondents indicated preference for palm wine (50.0%). Choice of alcoholic beverage was a function of several factors namely availability, ability to produce the alcohol, cost and others. Effects of alcohol consumption were evident by less commitment to livelihood activities, household’s welfare, incidents of violence and others. The study recommends that policies should be enacted to regulate proliferation and operation of alcohol enterprises in the rural areas. More importantly is the regulation of the type of alcohol marketed in the communities. Also government should promote programmes that target improved livelihood strategies and empowerment of rural people to enhance diversification of the rural econom

Women Farmers’ Perceived Impact and Acceptability of the Ongoing Agrcultural Development Programmes in Enugu State

The study appraised the National Special Programme for Food Security (NSPFS), Root and Tuber Expansion Programme (RTEP) and Presidential Initiative on Increased Cassava Production, Processing and Export (PICPPE) in Enugu State using women beneficiaries. Data were collected from 270 randomly selected women by use of interview schedule. Simple descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for data analysis. The programmes had similar and complementary baseline conditions. The women expressed acceptance of the baseline condition, but NSPFS baseline condition was more acceptable than that of RTEP and PICPPE with total mean scores of 4.4, 4.1 and 2.7, respectively. There was no significant difference in the impact of the programmes across the zones. Generally, the programmes were gender sensitive, but the popular poor access of women to production resources calls for greater investment on capacity building and sustained institutional support. Also given the market driven agricultural development trends across the globe, development intervention should essentially incorporate appropriate policy, legislative, and information system for sustainability and optimum impact

International institute of tropical agriculture plantain and banana programme: an insight into the contributions of farmerto farmer extension paradigm

Dissemination of research results by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) had been a major challenge to the Institute as inappropriate dissemination mechanism was revealed as a major constraint to her earlier efforts in disseminating cooking banana technologies between 1990 and 1994. A public-private technology delivery approach (research-farmer-to-farmer extension approach), which allows farmers to play the major role in dissemination of IITA plantain and banana based technologies was undertaken in three states of Nigeria. This study provides an insight into the contributions of this paradigm shift. The results show that farmer-to-farmer dissemination accounted for 26.6% awareness and 35.7% source of solutions to problems encountered in technology adoption at no direct cost to research and extension. Average plantain and banana hybrid adoption in the three states was 50.7%.Correlation analysis revealed that household size, ever questioned about plantain production problems, frequency of extension visits and trial experience had significant relationships with adoption. The regression analysis indicated that trial experience was the only variable with predictive value for plantain and banana hybrids adoption (R = 0.21). We concluded that free flow of information among all stakeholders is the panacea for sustained adoption and diffusion of the IITA plantain and banana based innovations