CURRENT RESEARCH PRIORITIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMAL AGRICULTURE RESEARCH (AAR) SCIENTISTS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

In March 2018, the Nigerian Society for Animal Production (NSAP) held its 43rd Annual Conference at Owerri, southeast Nigeria, with the theme ―Exploring Science and Technology Innovations for Sustainable Livestock Development‖ and produced a book of proceedings as its major conference output. This paper analyzed the 440 papers contributed to the book of proceedings, in order to highlight the current research priorities and sources of animal agriculture research (AAR) in Nigeria. Overall, 387(87.95%) oral and 53(12.05%) poster papers were contributed. AAR in Nigeria focused more on monogastric animal nutrition (MON) (18.68%, n=82) and animal physiology, reproduction and welfare (APRW) (17.27%, n=76) than other disciplines such as agricultural economics and extension (2.27%, n=10) and aquaculture (2.50%, n=11). The most popular animal model used in these studies was the domestic chicken, which accounted for 36.00%, (n=158) of overall papers and 34.81% (n=55) and 25.95% (n=41) of papers contributed under MON and APRW respectively. Papers were contributed from all the six geographical zones of the country, with the southeast (34.00%, n=149) and southwest (27.00%, n=116), recording the highest contributions and northeast the lowest (3,6%, n=17). The participants came from 83 institutions; however, more institutions were based in northcentral (24.12%, n=20) and southwest (21.62%, n=18) Nigeria. Most of the principal authors were affiliated to universities (59.00%, n=49), while only 4.00% (n=3) were affiliated to research institutions. AAR activities need to be resuscitated in these research institutes, while agricultural social scientist, aqua-culturist and pasture management experts should be encouraged to participate more in future conferences.