The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the Brazilian Association for International Education (FAUBAI), with the endorsement of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) of Nigeria, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which brings over forty Brazilian federal universities to the ARIFA Partnership Platform. With the operationalization of the MoU, the universities are ready to accept ARIFA Fellows from tertiary institutions for postgraduate, post-doctoral, and benchwork studies from all over Africa
Signing of MoU between FARA and FAUBAI. L-R: Arc. Sunday Echono (ES, TETFund), Prof Márcio Venício Barbosa (President, FAUBAI) and Dr Yemi Akinbamijo (ED, FARA)
The epic signing of the MoU took place on the margins of the first Agricultural Research & Innovation Fellowship for Africa (ARIFA) Symposium, which took place between April 28th and 29th, 2022, at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Brazil, and was tagged “Pedagogic Retooling Strategy for Africa’s Agricultural Research and Innovation System: Lessons from Brazil.”
Signing of MoU between FARA and FAUBAI. L-R: Arc. Sunday Echono (ES, TETFund), Prof Márcio Venício Barbosa (President, FAUBAI) and Dr Yemi Akinbamijo (ED, FARA)
The MoU was signed by the President of FAUBAI, Professor Márcio Venício Barbosa, and Dr Yemi Akinbamijo, the Executive Director of FARA, with endorsement by Arc. Sonny S.T. Echono (FNIA), the Executive Secretary (ES) of TETFund. Present to oversee the endorsement of the agreement was His Excellency Prof. Mohammad Markarfi, the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to Brazil.
In parallel, FARA and the Federal University of Lavras (UFLA), signed a similar MoU, to provide the legal framework for the implementation of ARIFA in UFLA. Already, four (4) fellows are studying in various fields at the university.
The signing of MoU between FARA and UFLA. L-R: Dr Abdulrazak Ibrahim (FARA), HE Prof Ahmad Makarfi (Nigerian Ambassador to Brazil); Dr Yemi Akinbamijo (ED, FARA) and Prof. Paulo Eduardo Ribeiro Marchiori (Director, International Relations, UFLA)
The event’s objective was to strengthen Africa’s human capital for Agricultural Research and Innovation with Nigeria as an example. It was further revealed that the FARA-TETFund partnership is raising the bar to identify five hundred faculty members from Nigeria’s tertiary institutions for skills upgrade in the new TetFund-FARA-FAUBAI ARIFA Partnership, all within the context of the South-South Triangular Cooperation (SSTC).
One Comment
This is a great venture to improve the output of faculty members, consequently improving food security and sustainable agricultural development in the country.
Am Dr. Mrs Adewoyin Oluyinka Benedicta from Department of Crop Science and Horticulture. Am passionate on research and innovation and having an enabling environment to actualize the national goal on reduction of postharvest losses in Horticultural crops which is crucial to the nation. Great efforts has been directed to increase in production but minimal efforts to postharvest losses. Various authorities have estimated that 25 – 70 percent of fresh fruit and vegetables produced are lost after harvest (Daramola and Okoye, 1998) Further studies revealed 20-40 percentage loss in developing countries (Barry, 2009; Kumrul et al., 2010; Atanda et al., 2011; Kereth et al., 2013; Vishal et al., 2014; Kughur et al., 2015; Ngowi and Selejio, 2019 while Kader (1992) estimated that from 5 to 25 percent of fruit from the farm gate never reach the consumer. Post-harvest losses of banana, citrus, grapes, apples, avocado, and papaya were reported to be 20-80, 20-95, 53, 14, 43 and 40-100 percentage respectively in the developing countries (Rajabi et al., 2015; Kughur et al., 2015). Food loss assessment provides basis for programmes aimed at reducing postharvest losses (Atanda et al., 2011). It always bring pain to me observing the huge losses in the value chain of fruits and vegetables due to inadequate posthavest handling of these crops by marketers due to lack of Knowledge and training. In view of the current state of the nation food security it is of great urgency to address this innovation gap and i wish to collaborate with FARA-TETFund partnership to achieve the objective of reducing postharvest losses.