To this end, two tripartite Memorandum of Understanding have been signed between the three institutions with a view to ensuring food security in the country.
The Vice Chancellor of DELSU, Professor Andy Ogochukwu Egwunyenga, disclosed this on Wednesday at a press conference to herald the 15th Convocation ceremonies of the University.
According to him, as part of efforts to develop the cooperative mechanisms between the partners in this collaboration, a DELSU team comprising the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Mrs. Rosemary Okoh, Prof. Godfrey Akpojotor, DELSU’s Director of the Centre for Research and International Programmes and Dr. Esther Kadiene, CRIP Deputy Director were recently hosted by the president of the National Taiwan Ocean University, Prof. Tai-Wen Hsu and top officials of that institution.
“The remarkable outcomes of this visit include agreements to set up multidisciplinary tilapia research collaborations; access to some of NTOU Laboratories; joint degrees starting at the postgraduate level; exchange of staff and students; setting up of a pilot tilapia farm for research in DELSU using special tilapia strains from Taiwan and co-organising international conferences/workshops”, the Vice Chancellor said.
He added that DELSU and NIOMR were recently invited to participate in the Taiwan-Africa Smart Sustainable Agriculture and Marine & Aquaculture Forum ((TASSAMA 2023), a Hybrid Conference of six Universities in Taiwan and three institutions in Africa held in March this year.
Prof. Egwunyenga further told journalists that DELSU has also embarked on poultry project aimed at meeting the SDG for food sufficiency “through strategic plan to update existing small-scale farms into a large-scale modern poultry farm involving integrated poultry value chain processes viz production, processing, input and marketing, all driven by innovative and transformative research”.
“The multidisciplinary Committee I set up for this purpose developed a robust business plan and incorporated the DELSU Agro-Allied Services Limited, which will now be driving the production of poultry and tilapia products to Delta s and beyond, as well as engage staff, students and our host community in the various chains’ processes”, the Vice Chancellor stated.
Also, he announced the ongoing collaboration between DELSU and the Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, in the area of students’ industry experience and the Cocoa Initiative in Delta State for sensitization and encouragement of farmers to invest in Cocoa farming.
In this regard, he said that DELSU has already established a cocoa plantation “as a model for training farmers on cocoa cultivation”.
