WSD 2018: Be the solution to soil pollution - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Years of our actions and habits on soil have left a legacy of pollution worldwide. Soils have a great potential to be the solution to the increasing challenge of soil pollution. 

They act as a sponge that filters contaminants, degrading and attenuating their negative effects. But soil buffering capacity is limited. If exceeded, contaminants can seep into the environment and enter the food chain.

Growing food on uncontaminated soils provides safe food and helps fight hunger. Ninety-five percent of our food comes from soils: conserving and sustainably managing soils is critical in successfully feeding a growing world population. 

Simultaneously, it can restrain the risk soil pollution poses to agricultural productivity, human health and the health of all organisms on Earth.

On 5 December 2018, World Soil Day, focus your attention on being part of the solution... Small daily changes can have a significant impact on the health of our soils.

Happy World Soil Day!

... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

Agro experts to seek adoptive solution for Africa @COP22

NaijaAgroNet:

A set of high-level experts in African agriculture and climate change issues would be converging at the city of Marrakech, Morroco to proffer solution as part of the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Discussions, NaijaAgroNet gathered will centre on how to implement an ambitious new initiative launched by the Moroccan government that seeks to mobilise some $30 billion for Africa to transform and adapt its agriculture to a changing climate.

NaijaAgroNet also reports that the event would showcase the most promising climate adaptation strategies for the continent, which could deliver food security to the 230 million people still suffering from chronic hunger in the region.

The high-level experts, NaijaAgroNet gathered would include representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, Morocco and Senegal, members of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mohamed Badraoui, Deputy Director General, INRA-Morocco, Richard Mrabet, Member of the Scientific Committee of the AAA initiative (INRA), Mohamed Ait Kadi, President, General Council of Agricultural Development (CGDA) , Olga Speckhardt, Head of Global Insurance Solutions, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Bruce Campbell, Director, CCAFS, and Sonja Vermeulen, Head of Research, CCAFS among others.

NaijaAgroNet recollects that some 100 per cent of African countries have included agriculture in their climate action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), highlighting the grave risk that climate change poses both to food security and economic growth on the continent. Yet African nations remain underequipped to act on these pledges.

Key policy recommendations from each session will be captured and developed into a framework for implementation for the Moroccan Adaptation of African Agriculture initiative.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Increased public spending on agriculture to solve Africa’s food crises

NaijaAgroNet 

The World Bank has urged Africa to increase public spending on agriculture as the only solution to solving the continent’s food crises NaijaAgroNet can authoritatively report.

Addressing a business forum in Nairobi, World Bank Group Senior Natural Resources Management Specialist, Ademola Braimoh stated that low investments in agriculture have made Africa’s agricultural sector vulnerable to climate change.

“These challenges can be overcome through more investment in instruments such as the Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA),” Braimoh said during the launch of the World Bank’s report on Increasing Agricultural Production and Resilience through improved Agro- Meteorological Services, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

In the same development, World Bank Kenya Country Director, Diarietou Gaye said over 220 million people are currently food insecure in Africa and this figure could rise to over 350 million by the end of 2015 unless appropriate interventions are put in place to cope with the intensity of climate change.

Gaye said climate change is a fundamental threat to development and should be confronted in order to combat poverty. She noted that a two degree Celsius rise in temperature in Africa will trigger a 40 to 80 per cent decline in land area suitable for growing maize, millet and sorghum.

“Climate projections indicate that crop yields decline by 5 per cent for every Celsius degree of global warming,” she added. 

Cyriacus Nnaji /ED (Ops)

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Mechanised farming solution to food insecurity says Ellen Sirleaf

NaijaAgroNet:

Mechanised farming has been identified as the solution to food insecurity in Liberia, according to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, reports NaijaAgroNet.

In a nation-wide address recently in Liberia and monitored by NaijaAgroNet, President Sirleaf noted that it is only through large scale mechanized farming operations and agro- industrial operations which focuses on emerging small and medium size entities is the only way Liberia can attain food security.

She observed that Liberia as an agrarian nation must increasingly shift to agriculture to ensure that the nation moves away from the old system of enclave extractive industries.

“We must aim at a higher potential for import and export diversification through stimulation of production in a select few of our traditional tree crops such as rubber, oil palm and cocoa, she said.

NaijaAgroNet also learnt that she reminded Liberians that the private sector must become the driving force of the economy with Liberia’s entrepreneurs playing their rightful role, adding, that this can only be achieved with the support of citizens by promoting and buying products made in Liberia as well as through the payment of rightful taxes.

President Sirleaf then pledged her government’s commitment in doing its part in establishing a peaceful and easy business environment by reducing the bureaucratic hurdles and at the same time ensuring that tax regimes are fair and allow businesses to expand.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

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pix: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf