ibironkeeniola 
FEDERAL government, through the federal ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has organised a five-day training programme on how to win grants for 50 selected agricultural research officers across the country.
Speaking at the opening of the five-day training programme held at Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Jimba-Oja, Kwara State last week, the Executive Director, ARMTI, Ilorin, Dr. Olufemi Oladunni, said that the participants were selected from research institutes and colleges of agriculture across the country.
Dr. Oladunni, who said that importance of research in the advancement of knowledge and developmental strides of both private and public institutions could not be over-emphasized, added that accessing funds to carry out research, especially in developing countries, was an uphill task.
The ARMTI boss, who urged the participants to make adequate use of the knowledge at the training, said that, “there can never be too much knowledge but there can be too little of it”.
Declaring the training open, Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara State, described agriculture as the bedrock of the economy growth of the nation and stressed the importance of writing award-winning and acceptable grant proposal.
Speaking through his Technical Assistant on Agriculture, Alhaji AbdulQuawiyy Olododo, Governor AbdulRazaq said it had become imperative to consciously train agricultural research officers on best practices of writing acceptable grant proposals.
The governor also said that government alone could adequately shoulder the responsibility of the agricultural funding, adding that the state government was ready to partner with institutes and agencies to make the people of the state enjoy the dividends of democracy.
Earlier in his keynote address, Professor Raphael Babatunde disclosed that, “Fund for demand-driven and applied agricultural research are becoming increasingly limited and very competitive”.
He stated that this was because traditional donors were now faced with more alternative investment portfolio. He said recession as well as economic stagnation in many countries had also limited the space for expending resources on agricultural research and related R&D programmes.
According to him, this had resulted in rejection of many hitherto good research grant proposals and acceptance of very few exceptionally good ones.
SOURCE: TRIBUNE