The Federal Government has announced plans to provide up to “N2bn in financing to each of 40 tertiary institutions” to establish commercial farms, as part of efforts to boost food production, create employment and reduce dependence on government funding by universities and other higher institutions.

Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, disclosed this during a meeting with heads of the selected institutions and the management of the Bank of Agriculture to discuss the implementation of the Renewed Hope Tertiary Agricultural and Entrepreneurship Programme.

“The programme is designed to mobilise more than 500,000 hectares of underutilised land across tertiary institutions for commercial agricultural production, research and enterprise development.”

Alausa said participating universities, polytechnics and colleges of education would be expected to provide approximately 1,000 hectares each, although institutions with smaller landholdings could also qualify based on the viability of their business proposals.

Under the arrangement, each participating institution would establish a limited liability company to partner with the Bank of Agriculture, “which would provide between N1bn and N2bn in financing for agricultural production and related inputs.

“The minister explained that the initiative was aimed at addressing the longstanding underutilisation of agricultural land in tertiary institutions by providing access to financing, machinery, technical expertise and institutional support.”

He said the Federal Government had also made provisions for the initiative through previous interventions by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, which approved N1bn for some institutions and N2bn for others.

Additionally, Alausa disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Education had provided N20bn in its capital budget to support 20 tertiary institutions under the agricultural development initiative.

On mechanisation, he said participating institutions would have access to 10 tractors each at significantly reduced costs through the government’s agricultural mechanisation initiative.

To guarantee markets for the expected harvests, the minister said arrangements would be made with produce aggregators to purchase crops, while measures would be introduced to minimise post-harvest losses.

He added that the programme would extend beyond primary agricultural production to processing and other agro-allied businesses, creating a sustainable value chain around participating institutions.

Alausa said students, unemployed graduates, alumni, academic and non-academic staff, as well as members of host communities, would be encouraged to participate in the commercial farming activities under the supervision of lecturers and agricultural experts.