Dr. Joan Fulton, associate head, Department of Agric Economics (left), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, his wife, Grace and Dr. Jay T. Akridge, during the ceremony of Honorary Doctor of Agriculture award to Dr. Adesina at the Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, US, at the week end.
Last week Friday, at the Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, in the United States, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina received a prestigious honorary Doctor of Agriculture degree. The award was conferred on him during spring commencement ceremonies in the West Lafayette campus’ Elliott Hall of Music.
Dr. Adesina was one of the two awardees for Honorary Doctorate degree awards during the ceremony, the second being William “Bill” Dudley Jr., president and CEO of the Bechtel Group, who got Doctor of Engineering degree. Both Adesina and Dudley are Purdue alumni.
While conferring the award on Adesina, the President of Purdue University, Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. paid glowing tributes to Adesina for his exemplary performance as a minister, which earned him recognition as one of the honorees. Earlier on Friday, Dr. Adesina was honoured in the College of Agriculture, where he gave a lecture on lessons to learn from Nigerian agricultural transformation.
Dean of the college, Dr. Jay T. Akridge, commended the Minister for deploy his intellect into transforming agriculture under his watch as a minister and was glad that an alumnus of Purdue lived up to their expectation. Dr. Adesina, in his presentation to the college, underscored the importance of inclusive growth in agriculture, which has taken a turn for the better under his watch as a minister.
Among the major achievements outlined by Dr. Adesina, in his presentation, are the impact of fertiliser and other key input subsidies, reaching out to 2.5 million women farmers under the Growth Enhancement Support scheme, the establishment of Nigerian Agricultural Payment initiative, the introduction of near field communication system for farmers’ data gathering, growth in the number of local private sector-based foundation seed companies and development of Staple Crop Processing Zones.,
On his bid for AfDB presidency, Dr. Adesina outlined his cardinal programme on assumption of office. According to him, Africa needs energy, ICT and urban and rural infrastructure. He identified youth employment, venture capital development and private equity as key to Africa’s development. Adesina pointed out the importance of reviving the rural economy through agricultural transformation, explaining that regional integration is also important for the continent.
Adesina informed the university community that Africa must avoid aid dependency and that “overseas development assistance (ODA) must be used to leverage domestic resources at scale.” He expressed worries on how improperly managed foreign aid could be inimical to the survival of fragile states. Dr. Adesina said climate change poses real problem for developing economies and needs to be discreetly managed.
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