Headquarters, Sub-Stations and Experimental Stations Network

                                                    Headquarters    

Benin City, Edo State

The Main station of the institute is a campus of 1735ha land area, located near Benin City about 29km from the city centre, off the Benin-City — Akure Road, where the bulk of the Institute’s research, and administrative personnel and physical resources are concentrated. The main-station has an elaborate infrastructure, developed over a span of about sixty years, comprising laboratories, office buildings, engineering workshops, library, an integrated oil mill, over three hundred units of residential houses and municipal services such as water supply scheme and electricity power generators and sub-station, medical facilities and primary schools.

                                        Sub-stations and Out-stations

The Institute’s work is also carried out in four research sub-stations namely Abak in Akwa Ibom State (for Oil Palm), Onuebum in Bayelsa State for (for Raphia), Dutse in Jigawa State (for Date Palm) and Badagry in Lagos State (for Coconut). Abak is the most developed of these Sub-stations with a fairly well established road network, modest office and workshop facilities.

As the mandate crops of the Institute are cultivated across different ecologies, and in some cases specific ecologies, the Institute also maintains experimental outstation listed in Table 1.

Plate 1. NIFOR’ s Administration building (Built in 1947)

Table 1: NIFOR Sub-Stations and Experimental Stations 

Dutse. Jigawa State

Following the recent allocation of an additional Jigawa State Government the institute’s work research will be expanded soon.

land area by the Emir of Dutse and at Dutse in Jigawa on date palm

Darazo. Bauchi State

The Bauchi State Government donated a 300ha at Darazo to the institute, in 1998 for date palm research. This will serve as an experimental research station for date palm, which is an important tree crop in the area.

Nsukka, Enugu State

NIFOR is carrying out in-situ germplasm conservation and exploitation among the Nsukka grove oil palm, where palms with exceptionally desirable characteristics, such as yield, high bunch number, and slow stem increment, have been identified.

The Institute also carries out experimental work in private farms and estates