NASENI Funded UniAbuja Agric Incubation Centre: Pathway To Nigeria’s Food Security

The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has again demonstrated its intention to contribute meaningfully to the transformation of the Nigeria’s agricultural sector to enhance productivity and ensure food security.

One of the numerous policy initiatives of the Agency, especially in the last two years of the tireless and visionary leadership of the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Agency, Khalil Suleiman Halilu, has been the conception of new ideas and the rapid implementation of same.

It was therefore laudable that the idea of constructing a state-of-the-art NASENI Agricultural Incubation Centre at the University of Abuja, Gwagwalada, crystallized into this intervention that will change the fortunes of the institution and make it the hub of technologically-driven commercial agriculture that will boost innovation in the country.

Director of Information, New Media and Protocol at NASENI, Olusegun Ayeoyenikan, in a statement disclosed that the project, located on a 10-hectare parcel of land at the campus, is designed to integrate poultry production, aquaculture, crop cultivation, and research-based innovation, that when completed, is expected to serve as a model facility for replication across the six geopolitical zones.

The NASENI Agricultural Incubation Centre is also made of one top-class agribusiness training and incubation centre and three commercially sustainable production centres for broiler and layer poultry farm units, high tunnel greenhouse farm, and catfish and tilapia fish farms.

Other modern farming infrastructure includes a tissue culture laboratory, greenhouses, administrative block and open-field cultivation supported by drip irrigation and modern agricultural technologies aimed at increasing food production, and supporting Nigeria’s food security agenda.

Speaking on the strategic importance of the initiative, the Acting Coordinating Director, Engineering Infrastructure Directorate, NASENI Headquarters and Coordinator of the NASENI Agricultural Incubation Centre, Engr. Dr. Agava Abdullahi Abdulrasheed, said the project aligns with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Federal Government, particularly in advancing food security.

“The NASENI Agricultural Incubation Centre is designed to make food available and affordable through technology-driven farming, breeding, and research. Its location within a university environment is deliberate, as it will strengthen research and development as well as knowledge transfer.”

He revealed that similar agricultural incubation project is ongoing at Bayero University, Kano, with plans to establish an additional centre at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi and, ultimately, replicate same in other higher institutions across the remaining three geopolitical zones of the country.

The project would be completed and commissioned before the end of the year in line with the declaration made by the NASENI boss, Halilu, that 2026 will be a year of measurable project impacts for the Agency.

Also speaking during the on-site inspection, the Project Manager, Onida Agri and Aquaculture Solutions Limited, Mr. Christian Montano, said the poultry component comprises a 10,000-capacity broiler unit and 10,000-capacity layer unit, while the aquaculture section features three production tanks, each measuring 16 metres in diameter, with an estimated annual output of about 25 tonnes of fish.

He added that the crop production segment includes 10 greenhouses of 500 square metres each, a 2.5-hectare net house, and four hectares of open-field farmland. He said the tissue culture laboratory is designed to accelerate seedling production and improve crop quality by significantly reducing the time required to propagate planting materials.

Montano noted that the Centre is also equipped with six solar- powered boreholes, power store workshops, irrigation control rooms, and a gatehouse with plans underway to construct a water retention structure to ensure uninterrupted water supply during both rainy and dry seasons.

It is pertinent at this junction to interrogate this brilliant idea amid the crisis affecting the country’s agricultural sector and the deficiencies in applying science, technology and innovation (STI) in improving agriculture in the country as well as the inability of the country to apply Research and Development (R&D) in the sector, which has really hindered its potential.

Nigeria has approximately 70.8 million hectares of arable land (including pastures). It holds roughly 40 per cent-50 per cent of West Africa’s cultivable land, making it a key agricultural player in the region. However, Nigeria at the moment does not utilize these vast resources to maximum advantage as records show that roughly 56 per cent of the available land is uncultivated.

With a population of about 230 million people it is pertinent that Nigeria exploits this opportunity and invests heavily in modernized agriculture. The state of agriculture is compounded by the fact that the sector is struggling even as it contributes about 25 per cent to gross domestic product (GDP) and employs over 70 per cent of the workforce. The challenge is that it is predominantly subsistence-based and grossly hindered by factors such as insecurity, low mechanization, climate change, and high input costs, making Nigeria a net food importer.

According to the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, in 2025 Nigeria’s annual expenditure on agricultural and food imports exceeded $10 billion, which is a very huge sum, which can be invested in local production instead of being spent on importation.

According to the United Nations World Food Programme, (WFP) 35 million Nigerians will face acute and severe food insecurity in 2026 if drastic measures are not taken to forestall this impending disaster especially in the northern parts of the country.

It is commendable that NASENI has taken this step to ameliorate this threatening situation of food shortages by expanding the project to the six geopolitical zones, and to Nigeria’s institutions of higher learning, where each will master products that are unique to them through R&D which will boost Nigeria’s variety and increase yields.

Therefore, this NASENI-driven agriculture incubation centre in Nigeria is fundamental model that will accelerate agribusiness growth, boost food security, and reduce unemployment by building startups. This programme is also meant to empower youth through training, modernize practices via technology adoption, and foster innovation across the agricultural value chain and enhanced income generation.

NASENI has made this centre more innovative in such a way that it will open up channels through which farmers and investors can connect as well as researchers and markets, driving economic diversification and commercialization of Nigerian products in order to earn foreign exchange and reduce the pressure on the naira.

At the heart of this programme is the zeal by NASENI to restore Nigeria’s agricultural glory and industrial renaissance and utilize the enormous potentials of the nation in agriculture to put the country on the global map of agro-based industries and technologically-efficient food processes with immense value.