Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, Caribbean top continents trafficking children globally

NaijaAgroNet:

Countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and the Caribbean have the highest share of children among detected trafficking victims at 64 and 62 per cent respectively, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) in its latest study tagged A Child is a Child, showed that 200,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum across around 80 countries in 2015-2016.

Also, NaijaAgroNet reports that some 100,000 unaccompanied children were apprehended at the United States (US)-Mexico border between 2015 and 2016.

While some 170,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in Europe in 2015-2016, there were unaccompanied and separated children which accounted for 92 per cent of all children arriving Italy by sea in 2016 and the first months of 2017.

Children, UNICEF said, accounted for approximately 28 per cent of trafficking victims globally.

“As much as 20 per cent of smugglers have links to human trafficking networks,” the study stated.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE 

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BOSCH, UNIDO partner on improving Cassava market profitability

NaijaAgroNet:

Global supplier of technology and services BOSCH has partnered with United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on improving Cassava market profitability in the Sub-Saharan Africa, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Speaking at the recently organized stakeholders consultative meeting in Lagos with farmers to discuss the prospect, challenges and marketing widows of cassava production in the country, the Managing Director of Robert Bosch West Africa, Mr. Ghislain Noumbessy, said it is imperative for farmers to take advantage of the technological tools and services that could help them proffer solutions to their food loss and perk up their profit.

Noumbessy also said that Bosch has been motivated by the search for ever-better technological solutions and fresh approaches that will help tackle the great challenges of today and deliver benefits to her customers.

“At Bosch, our work is guided and motivated to find solutions to even the most complex technological challenges while at the same time preserving natural resources and making a positive contribution to the society and that is why we decided to create a stakeholders consultative meeting to discuss about the market prospects, challenges and opportunities of agriculture especially in Cassava farming,” he said.

UNIDO representative from Austria, Dr. Yvonne Lokko told participants that they are working with Bosch in line with the United Nations agenda to reduce poverty, facilitate trade capacity building, agri-business and agro-industry development in Nigeria.

Speaking on the Bank of Industry (BoI) role in agric-business development in Nigeria, its Managing Director, Mr. Rasheed Olaoluwa, represented by Group Head, Agro Processing Unit of BOI, Mrs. Kadafa Lolo Ruth said that agriculture is one of the cardinal agenda of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and the bank will continue to give adequate necessary supports and loans to farmers to grow their business.

Mr. Olaoluwa also said farming is a serious business and cassava is a profitable trade but there is a significant need for many farmers to improve on their skills and management structures to enable them improve their farming in 21st century.

 

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Barloworld, BayWa joint supply to hit sub-Saharan Africa

NaijaAgroNet 

Two giant distribution groups Barloworld and Munich-based BayWa,have plans to put up a joint venture for the supply of agricultural equipment into sub-Saharan Africa, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Barloworld, a distributor of leading international brands providing integrated rental, fleet management, product support and logistics solutions, and BayWawhich offers machinery and equipment for farming and forestry, yard and barn and for local authorities, are establishing a joint venture, in which every one of the partners will embrace an equal 50 per cent shareholding.

Though the approval of the establishment is still a topic to the competition authorities but, the associates anticipate commencing operations at the middle of this year in Zambia by offering consulting, sales and services, including for the Allis-Gleaner Company (Agco) brands Challenger and Massey-Ferguson.

Clearing up the reasons for the establishment of the combined venture, Barloworld chief executive, Clive Thomson said yesterday that agriculture in Africa offers vital growth opportunities to those able to offer solutions.

“It is estimated that the continent has more than 60 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land required to feed 9 billion people globally by 2050 so Barloworld’s understanding of local mechanisation requirements, combined with our strong focus on after sales infrastructure and service, makes expansion beyond southern Africa a natural progression and together with BayWa we look forward to building on shared competencies to provide region-specific resources and solutions to the agriculture value chain in Africa,” he said.

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Can Beans help fill fertilizer’s gap in Africa?

NaijaAgroNet 

A report published last week February 16, 2015 by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has shown that global use of nitrogen fertilizer is estimated to grow by 1.4 per cent each year to above 119 million tons in 2018, reports NaijaAgroNet.

FAO also said from the same report that less than five per cent of the 119 million tonnes in 2018fertilizer growth will come from Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly because fertilizer is frequently costly for subsistence farmers in the region.

NaijaAgroNet reports that farmers in Africa has been encouraged to plant beans as food and fertilizer as it could help counteract the crash of limited fertilizer take-up across the continent.

The absence of Nitrogen in the soil, in the African region increases the demand of fertilizer which makes the price to be on the high side, which calls for the cultivation of legume crops that add Nitrogen to the soil giving the farmers to harvest both food and fertilizer at a time.

“We want to feed the people and feed the soil” said Ken Giller, a Wageningen University in the Netherlands, who is leading a project called N2Africa that is education subsistence farmers in 13 African countries how to grow Legumes said when growing legumes, such as beans and peas, nitrogen fertilizer is not necessary as the plants grab all the nitrogen they need from the air with the help of bacteria living in their roots. Some of the captured nitrogen also enters the soil through fallen leaves and from decomposing roots.

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Tomato, PineApple: We’re largest producers in Africa –Odusote

NaijaAgroNet/Remmy Nweke:

THE Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Mrs. Ibukun Odusote, has disclosed that Nigeria is the largest producer of Tomatoes and PineApples out of the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

She made this disclosure to NaijaAgroNet, during the 2013 international conference of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) in Iloko, Osun State, citing the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) an arm of the United Nations as making this pronouncement.

FOA Statistics confirmed to NaijaAgroNet that Nigeria is the biggest tomato producer in Sub-Saharan Africa and the 14th largest tomato producer globally, while on PineApple, Nigeria was also ranked largest producer on the continent and the 8th globally.

Nigeria, she said, has these fruits, especially PineApples in several varieties which are grown in locally.

“The sweet cayenne variety is common in Nigeria and well suited,” she declared.

Dwelling on “Opportunities for Investments in Nigeria’s Agriculture” in her presentation, Mrs. Odusote said that there are new and attractive investment opportunities in Nigeria, especially in the juice processing industry.

“Nigeria has a comparative advantage in fruit production relative to other African nations” she asserted, pointing out that Nigeria is the largest producer of pineapples in Africa and the 8th largest producer in the world with different varieties.

Using the 2011 favourable production comparison, she said that Nigeria produces 920,000 tonnes in PineApple, 795,000 Mangoes and 139,223 Watermelon within the period under review. This was against Kenya and South Africa which ranked second and third with Kenya recording 371,310 in PineApple production, 636,585 mangoes and 66,196 watermelon, whereas South Africa recorded 108,636 of PineApple, 52,318 of Mangoes and 77,993 of Watermelon.

For Tomatoes, she revealed that Nigeria produced 1,500 tonnes within the period under review with Cameroon coming close with 880, South Africa 507, Kenya 407, Ghana 340, Tanzania 250 and Benin 180.

However, she underscored the fact that tomatoes are not processed locally, leading to increasing import dependency of tomato paste in Nigeria despite the ranking in production.

“In the tomato value chain, processing is where an investor can capture the greatest economic value,” she said, adding that economics of the Tomato value chain in Nigeria which cuts across production, aggregation and logistics, processing of both paste and concentrate and finally retail, noting that concentrate could be an intermediate product of tomato paste with less water content, concentrate is generally produced for industrial use while paste is for domestic use.

She cited Dansa Foods for instance, disclosing that the firm invested $30 million in Tomato farming and processing in Kano State.

Also, she highlighted Beef processing as another investable option within the domestic market, saying opportunity for beef is large and growing and has today, about 310 metric tonnes of overall demands for consumption per capita and is expected to grow to 650 tonnes by 2020.

Some of the existing resource endowment, currently, she said, involves 19 million heads of cattle, adding that there are 15 states with about 500,000 heads of cattle each.

About 85 million hectares of uncultivated arable land with grassland resources was placed at 54 per cent of total land area under pasture, yet, there is supplementary feed available in forest areas

He emphasised that existing cattle production knowledge and capabilities are inherent Nigeria with the traditional Fulani livelihood, informal industry players from cattle rearers, traders to transporters and butchers.

In particular, she noted that the market for premium segments is rapidly developing including the growing quality conscious segment for the middle class segment which demands more high quality beef in hygienic conditions.

She highlighted type of beef demanded moving from unsophisticated raw cuts; types in open-air markets to prime cuts and mince to name a few. While the market has estimated size of $300million, increasing in the number of formal retail outlets and rapid expansion of outlets by supermarkets serving the middleclass over past 5 years with plans underway to at least double number of outlets by 2020.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government (FG) has added a total of 1,070,364 metric tonnes of food in 2013, says the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD).

Odusote disclosed to NaijaAgroNet, noting that this figure is one-third of the total paddy needed to be self-sufficient by 2015.

She attributed this to the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA)-based Dry Season Rice Transformation supported 268,000 farmers on 264,000 hectares in 10 northern states.

Also, she said the Dry Season farming added a total of 1 million metric tonnes (MT) to the domestic production.

She explained that this year alone, and for first time ever, Nigeria launched Dry Season farming of rice to take advantage of irrigation capacity in the North of Nigeria, stressing that Federal Government provided massive support for dry season rice cultivation in 10 states.

A total of 267,491 farmers, she said, received 50 kilogrammes (kg) of seeds, two bags of 15-15 NPK and one bag Urea.

“This has added an additional 1,070,364 MT of food in 2013. This is one-third of total paddy needed to be self-sufficient by 2015,” she declared.

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