‎UNN VC Calls for Increased Budgetary Allocation

‎Prof. Simon Uchenna Ortuanya, the Vice Chancellor, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), has called on the Federal Government to increase the budgetary allocation next year to accommodate agribase digital innovations, scale up farming in state levels, notably Enugu, Ebonyi and other pilot centres in various parts of the country and Africa
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‎He made the call at the end of the meeting of Accelerating inclusive green growth through Agri-based Digital Innovation in West Africa, AGriDi in UNN, a European Union (EU), funded project by icipe (International) in Abuja.
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‎Ortuanya stated: “Our appeal is that AGriDi should be included in the 2026 budget. This will help the team not to depend on foreign donors. Just last week the Enugu State government presented a budget of N1.6trillion. This is encouraging because agriculture has a good share of the budget, but the inclusion of AGriDi will help in the research project.
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‎On her part, Project Team Leader AGriDI, UNN,Prof.  Antonia Achike, stated that the team had developed a digital app that will support rice farming especially during the dried season in Nigeria and across Africa, assuring that it has been tested in the field and is working.
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‎The professor of Agricultural Economics  said 65 per cent of Nigerians are into agriculture, yet there is hunger, emphasising that statistics show that something is wrong which needed be fixed.
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‎She added that the Kampala declaration shows that every government in Africa is expected to allocate at least 10 per cent of its budget to agriculture and that Nigeria allocates eight per cent.
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‎Achike stated that the focus is to look at what has been done in the past 15 months, and get a buy-in more from international funders and governments across all levels.