Anambra still savouring $5m export of vegetables

NaijaAgroNet:

The Anambra State governor, Chief Willie Obiano has said that his four pillars of economic blueprint including Agriculture, Industrialization, Trade and Commerce and Oil and Gas, has started yielding dividends, even as the state still savouring the exportation of vegetables (Ugu) punkin leaves and (Onugbu) bitter leaf,  valued at $5 million to Europe, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Experts also defined Ugu as Telfairia occidentalis, a tropical vine grown in West Africa as a leaf vegetable and for its edible seeds. Common names for the plant include fluted gourd, fluted pumpkin, and ugu.

While Onugbu - Bitter leaf also known as Vernonia amygdalina, is a vegetable used for preparing the popular Bitter leaf soup. Also known as Onugbu, Shiwaka and Ewuro by the Igbos,

Speaking in Abuja in an interactive session which attracted Ndi Anambra residing in the North central part of the country at Transcorp Hilton recently, Gov. Obiano said that the state is now a socially stable, business-friendly environment attracting both indigenes and foreigners to seek wealth-creating opportunities.

He also told the profile audience which comprised the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Achebe, Dr.  Oby Ezekwesili both PDP and APC members of the National Assembly, former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju and leadership of the Anambra State Investment Agency (ANSIPPA), charged with the mandate of attracting and fast-tracking investments in the state has so far attracted over $4.2 billion deals to the state.

The latest investment he confirmed was sealed on Tuesday last week with Zolt Energy Limited to build a 40 megawatts Embedded Power Generating Plant in Ogbaru. When completed in the next 18 months as scheduled, all the power generated from it will be distributed mainly in Anambra State.

On the state of agriculture, Obiano who was giving a score card of his two and half years stay in office disclosed that “in January this year, Anambra made headlines when it became the first state in Nigeria to export vegetables (Ugu and Onugbu) valued at $5million to Europe. 

Further, Obiano said "Our locally produced brand of rice known as Anambra Rice recently emerged the Best Rice in Africa at an African Products Forum in Lagos. Anambra Rice was adjudged better and more wholesome than other competing brands from South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Namibia and Cameroon.”

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Climate change mars coffee production in Tanzania

 NaijaAgroNet

Farmers in Tanzania have abandoned the production of coffee and cotton due  mainly to changes in local climate and resorted to the planting of more lucrative vegetables and flowers as temperatures rise and rainfall becomes less predictable, reports NaijaAgroNet

Ludovick Meela, a farmer from Tanzania’s northern Kilimanjaro region told reporters that “Coffee beans are no longer as profitable, as my harvests keep on falling, I need fast-growing crops I can sell for a quick income,” he stated.

"When my children were growing up, coffee was everything to me," he told journalists "I got a lot of income from it, which enabled me to gain economically, but all that is history." 

Information reaching NaijaAgroNet showed that in Tanzania, scientists have attributed the drop in arabica coffee yields to a rise in nighttime temperatures in recent decades.

The strain to Tanzania’s cash crops is the latest sign that climate change is altering how and where food is produced around the world.

In Honduras, banana farmers are seeing yields decline amid fierce cold snaps and erratic rain patterns. India’s wheat and rice crops are suffering from hotter weather, and in the U.S. West, enduring drought has caused the beef-cattle herd to shrink to its lowest level in more than 60 years, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

Cyriacus Nnaj/GEE

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Plateau trains farmers on vegetable production

NaijaAgroNet

The Agricultural Service Training Centre(ASTC)  in Plateau state has trained some farmers in the production of improved variety of vegetables preparatory to go into double season cropping to address increasing demand of vegetables in the state. 

The General Manager of ASTC Mr. Oren Shaked, who made this known, said that the ASTC, through its greenhouse project in the state has trained some farmers on the use of improved tomato and other vegetable varieties for production through the wet season using the greenhouse style.

 Shaked confirmed to NaijaAgroNet that one can grow anything in a greenhouse and at any time of the year, noting that if tomato is grown in the greenhouse during the rainy season it can sell at a very high price because it is scarce in the market. 

He said one can also reduce to a minimum the use of chemicals in the greenhouse because the plants are protected from insects thereby requiring very little insecticide or fungicide, adding that a lot of consumers today look for organic crops that are grown without the use of fertilizer and chemicals.

“The climate under the greenhouse is being controlled, crops grown in the house are better than those grown in the open field and during the harmattan or dry season, the nights are very cold but in the greenhouses it is hot, the temperature is being controlled so you can get better crops,” he said.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that even though greenhouses provide better and improved ways of crop production especially to local irrigation farmers whose vegetables are exposed to harsh climatic conditions as well as pests and diseases, some of the farmers nevertheless see this advanced system of farming as mere fancy which is incapable of upstaging the conventional farming system. 

“We also harvest all those strawberries, cherry tomatoes that the White people harvest in their greenhouse but we don’t cover the place because you will be putting a farmer in difficulty if you ask him to go into that system because he won’t be able to afford it,” a farmer said.

*With additional report from Daily Trust          

AN/GEE

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pix: Gov David Jang of Plateau state

Oyo, Canadian firm signs N209.8bn MOU on mechanised agric

Anthony Nwakaegho/NaijaAgroNet

The Oyo State government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) worth $1.3 billion about N209.8 billion with a Canadian agricultural company for the development of the state agricultural sector towards the production of tomatoes, vegetables, fruits, chicken as well as wind solar system.

At the signing ceremony in the state, the excited Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi explained that his trips abroad had paid off as the MOU with the Canadian company will see that the project commence in the next three months and to attain  full scale production in the next two years.

NaijaAgroNet learnt from Governor Ajimobi that the investment which would be second to none in the annals of agriculture in Africa is meant to enhance food security and also to provide job opportunity for the teeming unemployed youth in the state and beyond.

He commended the firm, SGNTT, for its commitment to the development of agriculture and for its readiness to invest in the state’s agricultural sector and noted that” The MoU is a milestone. It is a legacy that will stand the test of time. It will be second to none in terms of the opportunities available in agriculture.”

The leader of the team, Edward Ndububa  disclosed  that based on the understanding with the state government, the firm is committed to partner with it in the area of large scale mechanised agriculture,  while the project would be located in Itesiwaju and Afijio local government areas of the state

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Pix: Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi

Canada invests N469m in Nigeria vegetable research

  

Anthony NwakaeghoNaijaAgroNet

Canadian authorities have invested the sum of $2.9 million, about N469 million into the Nigerian research project for the “sustainable production and utilization of underutilized Nigerian vegetables.”

The research study according to NaijaAgroNet findings is funded by the International Department of Research Centre (IDRC) and Canadian International Food and Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) in collaboration with the University of Manitoba and Cape Breton University, all based in Canada.

Also, the research which commenced after the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Osun State University, Osogbo, has been extended to Ondo, Ekiti and Oyo States respectively.

NaijaAgroNet learnt that the research is on six high premium underutilized vegetables that has nutritional value and abound in the South West Nigeria.

The essence of the research is to clearly define the agronomic practices, nutritional and economic value of the vegetables for the benefit of the farmers in Nigeria.

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