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Showing posts with label Chief Executive Officer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chief Executive Officer. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Smallholder farmers need agribusiness skills to succeed–Nnaemego



 
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO)/Founder, Fresh Young Brain Development Initiative, Barr.Nkiruka Nnaemego, has said rural women and smallholder farmers need agribusiness skills and transformative leadership to succeed in the sector, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Nnaemego who was speaking at the Rural Women Farmers Forum (RWFF) General Assembly held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said leadership is a process of directing and influencing another individual or group of individuals to accomplish a goal;an art and ability of inspiring, guiding, and directing people so that they ardently desire to do what the leader wishes.
NaijaAgroNet also reports that the training was organised to help women and smallholder farmers have access to additional skills and knowledge to enable them to move from a 'farm' to a'firm (business)’.
Nnaemego enumerated ways to build good customer relation in agribusiness to include keeping customers details (names, phone numbers and other relevant information), which would help for easy contact of clients especially when “you’ve not seen them for a while.”

Listening, she said, is just as important as telling, stressing the importance of talking with your clients often that apart from business purpose, the farmer should build informal relationship by calling them often to show them “you care.”

NaijaAgroNet also reports that Nnaemego encouraged farmers to set and manage realistic expectations,adding that as much as customers want their problems to be fixed, farmers should try as much as possible not to disappoint them.

“It is better to always be truthful and realistic than disappointing them,” she cautioned, pointing out that reward is a very simple form of saying 'thank you.' This could be verbally or in action through discounts or free products.

On customer segmentation, she said, the farmer could group customers according to their common needs, common behaviours or other  afford them to answer the question:Are they willing to pay for your product or service?Who are they?  Are they old, young, and from where, rural or urban?

Customer relationship, she told the women farmers, is a way an agropreneur communicates and deals with existing and future customers in other to retain and gain more client, solidify relation with existing ones and loyalty which increases profitability.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE
 ... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

Friday, October 9, 2015

African agriculture, food industry to hit N199.2 trnby 2030



NaijaAgroNet
 
The President and Chief Executive Officer, Earth Alive, David Gilmour, has said that African agriculture and food industry is currently worth US$310 billion, about N61.76trillion and has the opportunity to grow substantially to US $1 trillion about N199.2 trillion by 2030, NaijaAgroNet reports.

He said, African agriculture represents nearly half of the continent's economic activity and the industry is pro-actively looking for safer, healthier and better fertilizer technologies to meet the accelerating demand for organic growing.

“The African agriculture and food industry is currently worth US$310 billion and has the opportunity to grow substantially to US $1 trillion by 2030, offering the prospect of a three-fold increase: bringing more jobs, greater prosperity, less hunger, and significantly more opportunities which will enable farmers in Africa to better compete globally,” he said.

Mr. Gilmour also said his office is receiving accreditation for its innovative microbial biofertilizer - which helps produce larger and healthier crops - will be beneficial to organic and traditional farmers in Africa, and is a critical step for Earth Alive to unlock this enormous market opportunity as we continue to expand registration in new markets globally," Gilmour stated.

Earth Alive Clean Technologies Inc. which aims to be a key player in world markets of environmentally sustainable industrial solutions,  recentlyannounced that it is in the process of completing product registration for its patent-pending microbial biofertilizer in West Africa and Southern  Africa. This arduous and lengthy registration process is necessary for the commercialization of fertilizers and agricultural inputs in most countries worldwide, and the Company anticipates having product registration approval by early 2016.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

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Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Nnaemego targets 10,000 youth-led farms




A legal practitioner, and Chief Executive Officer of Fresh and Young Brains Development Initiative, Barrister Nkiru Nnaemego, has said that her organization is targeting about 10,000 farms which will be managed by youths, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Speaking to NaijaAgroNet, she stated that there is huge potential in agriculture especially considering the fact that research has shown that 2030 will mark the beginning of global decline in oil and that  British Council’s Next Generation Report 2010 indicated that Nigerian youths will be the greatest resource of Nigerian economy.

As one of those who benefitted from Fund for Agricultural Financing in Nigeria(FAFIN),a federal government financial assistance to farmers, she intends to invest massively in programmes whose targets are the youths. 

“I am honoured to be among the 27 Nagropreneurs that received the initial grant from the presidency through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) under the Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme (YEAP),” she said.

Nnaemego disclosed her plans to invest the funds in the Youth Farm (YFarm) Incubation (One Stop) Centre for African Youth in Agribusiness. 

“This centre will provide online and onsite certificate courses in agribusiness, host a culinary school, agro-processing/packaging plant and an integrated farm for livestock, aqua-culture and crop production,” she said.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE
 

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Thursday, December 5, 2013

Novartis is focusing on new technologies beyond therapeutic solutions - CEO


The Chief Executive Officer of Novartis, Mr. Joseph Jimenez, has declared that they are focusing on new technologies beyond therapeutic solutions, reports NaijaAgroNet.

“Novartis is taking an outcomes approach, looking beyond therapeutic solutions to a focus on new technologies, new commercial models, education and training,” says Jimenez.

He made this declaration at the opening session of Novartis senior executives assemblage in Basel, Switzerland for the first-ever tagged Novartis Africa Day 2013, to review the company’s innovative work in Africa, including growing commercial activity, novel approaches to expand access to high-quality, affordable medicines, local talent development and the company’s Malaria Initiative.

“As the continent increasingly grapples with the dual healthcare burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, we believe we can make a significant difference in improving lives as the demand for healthcare rises,” he said.

Africa, he told NaijaAgroNet at the opening session, faces immense challenges in its efforts to provide adequate healthcare to its people. Stressing that the continent is home to one-seventh of the world’s population, shoulders one-quarter of the global disease burden, but it has only two per cent of the world’s doctors and less than one per cent of global health expenditure.

“Life expectancy is 15 years less than the global average. Africa is also at a turning point as it begins to be challenged by a dual disease burden; both communicable diseases that have historically plagued the continent, such as malaria, and non-communicable diseases that are on the rise due to lifestyle changes, such as diabetes,” he said.

Jimenez also decried low levels of disease awareness, declining infrastructure and poor distribution channels, which further compound Africa’s problems.  

Novartis, he said, employs a range of activities on the African continent with the aim of becoming the leading healthcare company in Africa.

Programmes to be discussed at the event include Sandoz Health Shops in Zambia, the Novartis Malaria Initiative and SMS for Life.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that Sandoz Health Shops have the potential to reach more than 2.5 million patients over the next four years. While Novartis Malaria Initiative, reportedly provided more than 600 million antimalarial treatments, without profit, to more than 60 malaria-endemic countries.


Additionally, SMS for Life has reduced wait times and stock-outs for antimalarial medicines from three months to a few days and from 79 per cent to less than 26 per cent in three districts in Tanzania.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE/APO
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Sunday, October 27, 2013

Smith debunks Belmont Meats link to source of E.coil


The Chief Executive Officer of Belmont Meats, Duffy Smith has debunked the assertion that the possible E.coil contamination of a ground beef originated from his Toronto plant, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Smith, whose company has been at the center of a ground beef recall, said that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is checking where the beef trim that his company uses to make burgers came from so that the source of the E. coli can be traced.

"We fully vetted all our production systems and checks. They cover the gamut of federal requirements for handling raw meat and our operations are clean. They (CFIA) have gone back into the supply chain and they are working with several suppliers trying to source where the contamination came from," Duffy said.
Smith said the beef Belmont uses is certified and inspected by the CFIA from Canadian beef suppliers, which he declined to name, while a spokesman for the CFIA, Guy Gravelle said in an email from Ottawa that he could confirm that the agency continues to investigate.
It will be recalled that NaijaAgroNet reported this story of beef that has been linked to nine confirmed cases of people getting sick from E. coli in the province, two probable cases and four suspected cases.
It recorded also that the three main beef-processing plants in the country include two operated by Cargill Canada in High River, Alta., and Guelph, Ont, and the other is the JBS Food Canada Inc. plant in Brooks, Alta., formerly owned by XL Foods which was at the centre of the largest meat recall in Canadian history last year when eighteen people became ill.
 Since the agency began issuing health hazard alerts earlier this month about possible E. coli, Belmont has recalled about 68,000 kilograms of beef, including products distributed across Canada.While details of the alerts and recalls, including which products are involved, are posted on the agency's website.

AN/GEE
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Friday, September 20, 2013

Asonye laments cost of rice productions, lauds CADP intervention


Anthony Nwakaegho/NaijaAgroNet

An Ofada rice farmer and the Chief Executive Officer of Chileo Farms, Mrs Chinasa  Asonye has decried the cost of rice production in the country.

Speaking to NaijaAgroNet at the 2013 forum organised by the Commercial Agricultural Development Project (CADP) under the Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture, in an exclusive interview, Mrs. Asonye noted that the cost of rice production posed a lot of challenges to the farmers in Lagos State, until the intervention of the CADP through the provision of equipment and other incentives. 

She said at the event with theme ”Media and the challenges of food security in Nigeria” that despite farmers do not have enough land, CADP intervention to crop has helped to cut down cost to where it is now.

NaijaAgroNet gathered from her that the rice farmers produce once a year and gather all that they have to sell and after that they begin to look for where they can buy.

She called on government to intervene in the area of irrigation, fertilizer, equipment for winnowing the rice, planting the rice.

She explained that the Ofada rice farmers were packaging on their own which increased the cost, until CADP came with the intervention of sponsoring and packaging the rice for the farmers.

“There is nothing like one going into food business because without food you will not be able to satisfy everybody. People should venture in any business about food and agriculture no matter how small they produce; they must always sell to satisfy other people,” Chileo CEO explained.

She told NaijaAgroNet that her product and that of other Ofada rice producers are not in the market because they have limited market and says that they don’t have enough to get into the market, but only supply to people that want it.

“We are clamouring for more campaign so that the campaign for awareness by the media can work. We need more land for farming because it takes a lot especially this red rice that I specialise in producing. The red rice is the short and stunted, brownish in colour from Abeokuta. A lot of people like it, but its more expensive than the Agasa rice which is the long green rice. There are 270specie of Ofada rice so it depends on the one you want to specialise.

“I specialised in red rice and the CADP has helped us with land, winnowing machines and inputs like fertiliser, while we only provide the labour. The CADP intervention has helped, and that is why we can cut down cost. If we do everything by ourselves, consumes of the Ofada rice cannot buy it at N300. They will buy it at almost N800 per kilogramme, so we build in all these cost,” she said.

NaijaAgroNet was informed by Chinasa that her red packaged Ofada rice are in 500kg,1kg and 50kg in bags and the prices are N300 for 500kg, I kg is N600 respectively.

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