AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING STUDENTS HAVE A BIG ROLE TO PLAY!

In a recent article released on July 31, 2019 by leadership.ng, His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Oyo state, Engineer Seyi Makinde reiterated his readiness to drive the economy of the state through agriculture and its value chain saying such measure would actualize accelerated development in the state. He further explained that he is ready to partner with any private sector to drive the economy of the state in order to bring desired benefits and developments to the people of the state.

This, of course, is a very good decision coming from the Governor and it should come up at no better time than now. However, it should be noted that past governments have made this promises at the same point in their tenure but could not fully fulfill their promises before they were substituted. It is therefore important to identify where they got it wrong and how the current administration can do better.

I will start this analysis by looking at one of the contract awarded by the immediate past administration – the construction of a 10,000 metric tonnes silo and supply of combined silo equipment which should cost #260.5 billion (source: today.ng/news; dated August 1, 2019). For clarification, a silo is a structure for storing bulk materials such as grains, fermented feed and others. Silos are not complicated structures but the material of construction used might be very expensive since they are usually imported. These imported materials are not suitable for our climate and at the end will not fulfill their purpose.

In this paper, I looked at viable ways to cut cost of construction and maintenance of farm structures, most especially silos. I also looked at the efforts and readiness of Agricultural Engineering students to be involved in the process of revamping the agricultural sector of Oyo state.

In a research carried out by Mijinyawa, Y., E. B. Lucas and F. O. Adegunloye (“Termite Mound Clay as Material for Grain Silo Construction”. Agricultural Engineering International: the CIGR Ejournal. Manuscript BC 07 002. Vol. IX. July, 2007), treated termites mound clay was used to construct a silo. The result was superb. The Grain qualities were maintained during the storage period, the viability before and after storage were 88% and 84% respectively. The treated termite mound clay silo demonstrated great potential for reducing temperature fluctuations and maintaining grain quality in storage. This is better compared to the silos made of metal which experience moisture condensation, resulting in grain deterioration. There are other viable silo construction materials available locally on which research has been done and has been confirmed good. We have no genuine reason to be importing material of construction of silo when we have tested and trusted materials that can do the job better.

Agricultural and Environmental Engineering Students of University of Ibadan, with the support of their supervisors, have also carried out several research and projects on agricultural structures (silos inclusive). A visit to the Projects Display shed at the Department is all the evidence needed. They are not stopping. Recently, the students under the aegis of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering Students’ Society, University of Ibadan (AEESS-UI) started ICT training. At the end of the training, students would be able to use the ICT skills acquired to solve modern day agricultural challenges and will look for means by which Agricultural structures and processes can be upgraded to suit the modern world. That is why they are getting trained in the areas of programming, automation, robotics, AI (Artificial Intelligence).

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God bless all Agricultural Engineering Students

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