Abuja — The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture at the weekend unveiled a strategy to boost agricultural research in Africa with plans to establish a Global Research Park in Nigeria.

The plan which has been approved by the institute will attract big international private sector research companies to the institute's headquarters in Ibadan, according to the Director General of IITA Dr. Peter Hartmann.

"Already we have three international research centers working with us here, now we want to get the biggest private sector research companies to come here so that we make this place a Global Research Park," said in a statement.

He said the park will create additional jobs for Africans and help improve crop productivity on the continent, "improve livelihoods, boost food security, generate wealth and help fight poverty."

The institute said some of the reasons which made Nigeria a destination of choice are the rich and vast agroecologies and its population of over 140 million people.

"Nigeria allows IITA to work in the dry lands, forest lands and the wet lands. It has all the agro ecologies. "We have been here for almost 50 years and hope to be here in the years ahead. We have no intention of going anywhere," he says.