Crop Science

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Department of Crop Science is one of the major Departments under the Faculty of Agriculture; it was established in 1975. It offers different courses at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. It renders tertiary education and research in the field of crop production. In addition to its top quality teaching to the undergraduate and postgraduate students, the Department also provides high quality postgraduate research (both fundamental and applied) with modern laboratory facilities. The Department also implements need-based and demand-driven research on field crop production for improving their productivity and thus helping the nation to ensure food security to the nation. The major areas of teaching and research of the department are Crop Anatomy and Physiology, Crop Genetics and Breeding, Weed Science, Entomology, Plant Phatology, Horticulture and Irrigation Agronomy, The Department has well-equipped laboratories for teaching and research. As a component part of this Department, 3 farms were established namely: Botanical Garden, Dryland and Lowland to use as field research farms for undergraduate and post-graduate studies. It also has a screen house.

The Bachelor of Agriculture (B. Agriculture) programme is designed to provide a broad educational training in agriculture. The five-year degree programme thus place a great deal of emphasis on Agricultural Economics and Extension, Animal Science, Crop Science, Soil and Agricultural Engineering as integral part of a composite undergraduate curriculum in general agriculture. This is to enable the students appreciate and tackle the diverse and multiple constraints to food production.

The programme recognized the need to produce competent personnel to man the agriculture sector of the economy, thus, a one year programme is introduced at four hundred levels, exclusively for laboratory and field practical’s in all the courses. The execution of this programme also provides for practical training in the University’s farm, as well as in commercial farms and agro-industrial enterprises within and outside the catchment area of the institution. The programme recognized the need to produce competent personnel to man the agriculture sector of the economy, thus, a one year programme is introduced at four hundred level, exclusively for laboratory and field practical’s in all the courses. The execution of this programme also provides for practical training in the University’s farm, as well as in commercial farms and agro-industrial enterprises within and outside the catchment area of the institution.

The programme also encourages in-depth knowledge and specialization in any five cognate areas of Agriculture at the final year level, namely:

(a) Agricultural Economics

(b) Agricultural extension and Rural Development option

(c) Animal Science Option

(d) Crop and Soil Science Option

The curricula of these options provides adequate theoretical and practical training required for post-graduate work and encourage development of special skill in the different fields of agriculture.

The main thrusts of the programme are:

1. Provision of basic knowledge needed for the analysis and understanding of the physical, climatic and socio-economic environments of food production systems and to proffer appropriate solutions to the problems.
2. Training of broad-based and practical oriented graduates needed to man the public and private agricultural organizations and related parastatal.
3. Provision of sufficient theoretical and practical background training required for post-graduate work and further development of the professions in agriculture.

The philosophy and objectives of the B. Agriculture programme accord due recognition to the expected roles of agricultural education in the overall development of the nation.

In addition, the Department also offered post-graduate studies namely; Master of Science (M.Sc.), M. Phil and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Degree Programmes. The main areas of specialization are MSc and PhD. in Crop Science (Agronomy), PhD. in Crop Science (Plant Breeding) PhD. in Crop Science (Entomology) and M. Phil Crop Science.   The Department has highly qualified teaching staff (6) Professors; 1 Reader, 2 Senior Lecturers, and 3 Lecturers) with well experience of using all modern tools of agricultural teaching and research. With the existing facilities the Department is trying to render top quality education and research in the field of crop science for producing agriculture graduates of international competence to meet the tertiary education sector of the country and development goal of the country. As a routine work the Department regularly updates the existing course-curricula of Crop Science as per international standard. The Department is emphasizing to include new courses based on national and international demands in the field of Agriculture, especially the issues related to climate change and crop vulnerability