National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services: Brief History and Background
The National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services, of the Ahmadu Bello University (NAERLS/ABU), which was formerly funded by the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (FMST), is one of the Research Institutes being funded by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The Institute is charged with the primary responsibility of research, development, collation, evaluation and dissemination of agricultural technologies to rural farm families and other interested end-users.
The Institute grew out of the “Specialist Services” section of the former Northern Nigeria Ministry of Agriculture. With the transfer of Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) Samaru in 1962 to the newly created Ahmadu Bello University, it became imperative to establish an organ to provide a formal link between IAR and the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure that research results get to farmers in useful adoptable form. Thus the Research Liaison Section (RLS) was created in 1963 within the Ministry.
In 1975, the Ahmadu Bello University Council, in accordance with Statute 19, separated the ERLS from IAR and renamed it the Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (AERLS). Thus, AERLS, became an autonomous Institute within the Agricultural Complex of the University under the aegies of the then Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (FMST), similar to the parent Institute, IAR.
Following the reorganization of the Research Institutes by the then Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, a number of changes in the mandates of several Research Institutes were announced in April, 1987. In recognition of its contribution to the successful extension support services in the Northern States of Nigeria, the AERLS thus earned a national mandate which transformed it to National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) which led to the establishment of five zonal offices one each in the five Agro-ecological zones. The Institute has since then been implementing the national mandate.