AATF enters deal with Japan Tobacco on rice varieties

In order to develop varieties of rice in sub-Saharan Africa, the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) has signed a license agreement with Japan Tobacco (JT), a leading international tobacco product company.

The license, as revealed in a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet, would enable smallholder farmers in Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Uganda to use JT's transformation technology to develop new rice varieties.

The project which seeks to address major constraints facing rice production in Sub-Sahara Africa region is tagged 'Nitrogen Use Efficient, Water Use Efficient and Salt Tolerant (NEWEST) Rice Project.' Japan Tobacco would also offer free technology in support of humanitarian aid projects.

Commenting on the agreement, AATF Executive Director, Dr. Denis Kyetere affirmed that slow growth in domestic rice production has contributed to the low output achieved by farmers in the region.

“Several factors are responsible for the low rice production. However, nitrogen deficiency and drought have been cited as leading constraints to upland rice production, while high salinity is increasingly becoming a major problem in many rice growing areas of Africa,” he noted.

NaijaAgroNet recollects that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) once revealed that rice production in the region has stagnated at about 14.5 million tonnes per year, which is against the annual consumption of 21 million tonnes, hence the need to boost production.

The license, JT’s Chief Strategy Officer, Mr. Masamichi Terabatake said would also enable the use of JT's plant transformation technology for monocot species, PureIntro; developing and deploying the nitrogen efficient, water efficient, and salt tolerant rice products, free of royalties.

PureIntro is an agrobacterium-mediated plant transformation technology that is recognized worldwide as de facto standard for monocot transformation, which reduces development costs and time.

Additionally, PureIntro has been licensed by JT to more than 50 private and public entities worldwide for numerous monocots including maize, rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, sugarcane, switchgrass, miscanthus, forage and turf.

JT’s plant biotechnology is independently managed from its core businesses including its tobacco business and food business, thus not applied to its product development conducted within those businesses.

AATF launched the NEWEST Rice for Africa Project in 2008 with the objective to transform some varieties of the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) to improve their productivity in nitrogen-poor soils.

Experts say, provision of smallholder rice famers with higher yielding varieties are well adapted to the upland and lowland rice-growing areas in Africa, which also is another goal for establishing NEWEST.

Other partners in this private public partnership include Arcadia Biosciences who are providing access to traits that confer nitrogen use efficiency, water use efficiency and salt tolerance. The University of California is donating required plant transformation technologies. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the national agricultural research institutes of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda will conduct the necessary field trials to test the performance of the new varieties.

The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), and will initially be implemented over a 10-year period.

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No other sector creates jobs faster than agric - Adeshina

Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, Agric & Rural Development Minister

Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development has described agriculture sector as the fastest in terms of employment generation.

The Minister, NaijaAgroNet learnt, said this in his remarks in Ekiti State at the Youth in Commercial Agribusiness Development Programme recently.

He also applauded the state governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi for involving the state's youth in agriculture.

"To unlock the potential of agriculture to create jobs, we must engage the energy, dynamism and entrepreneurship of the youth," Adesina said.

"We are no longer treating agriculture as a development programme," the Minister asserted, adding that the goal of the government is to treat agric as a business and to make the nation an agriculturally industrialised economy.

He also made known the goal of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda to add an additional 20 million tonnes of food to the domestic food supply with the creation of 3.5 millions jobs in all the agriculture value chains.

He remarked that subsistence farming is not viable to feed a nation, pointing out that there is the need to expand the level of use of tractors in the country, which could be done by small, medium and large scale farmers.

In a bid to raise the level of use of improved seeds, Adesina said that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development financed the entire seed supply for the country which amounts to N2.7 billion for the 2012 season.

The finance, he said is not from the government but the use of guarantees for banks to lend to seed companies. 

He also affirmed that the Federal Government was able to secure financing for the supply of fertilizers for 2012, at the level of N27 billion from commercial banks using guarantees from the Ministry of Finance.

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African agric ministers call for the use of biotechnology, ICT

Agriculture and Science and Innovation Ministers in Africa have called for the use of modern technologies like biotechnology and ICT in agricultural research, reports NewsTime.

The ministers NaijaAgroNet learnt at the ended of the second dialogue of agriculture, science and innovation ministers in Accra also call for the creation of Innovation Fund for Agricultural Transformation (IFAT) in a bid to boost extension and increase access to information and knowledge.

The Ministers in a communiqué released at the end of the meeting asserted that the creation of the funding mechanism will stimulate both public and private investments across the continent which will sustain transformation of agriculture.

Executive Director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Monty Jones said there is a need for paradigm shift that would transform African Agriculture. "The mindset that we can sustain ourselves through subsistence farming has trapped the continent in a cycle of famine and failed harvests."

Monty also said that African farmers do need improved seeds and other inputs, and timely advice on how use them, saying "Africa’s farmers do not need pity. They need support." 

NaijaAgroNet further gathered that participants at the dialogue said that African farmers need greater access to improved, resilient seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, weather insurance and other means to improve their farm production.

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Green ICT tops agenda ITU symposium

The advancement of green Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) agenda through awareness creation is one of the key agenda of the seventh edition of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Symposium on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change.

The symposium is to raise awareness about the power of Information Communications Technologies (ICTs) in helping to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

ITU in a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet revealed that the symposium was jointly organised by ITU and Canadian government, and hosted by Prompt, an R&D partnership developer and scheduled to hold between 29th and 31st May, 2012 at Montreal, Canada.

The symposium, ITU said, would also explore ways in which advance technologies could play a role in improving the environmental sustainability of the ICT sector itself, and how ICTs could help countries better tackle the effects of climate change and new strategies to help tackle e-waste. 

The event would form part of ITU’s activities in the lead up to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), highlighting the key role played by ICTs as enablers in environmentally-sustainable economic development.

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Employ modern techniques to boost farm productivity - Experts

Mechanized Farming

Experts have called for incorporation of modern techniques and methods to boost farm productivity as the next revolution in farming, IBNLive reports.

The Deputy Director-General, Crop Science, Indian Council of Agriculture Research, Swapan Datta said at a discussion panel that biotechnology can improve biodiversity and also help with the improvement of farm productivity as well.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that Datta said science and technology can be used to develop value added genetically engineered or modified crops and that crops can support our environment and farmers' need. 

S L Kothari, Professor of Botany Department, University of Rajasthan, another member of the panelist laid emphasis on increase in farm productivity so that farmers can get more benefit from crops. Read more

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Incorporate science in fight to boost food security - Expert

Following a recent study that revealed a yearly loss of about 1.3 billion tonnes of food, an expert has called for the incorporation of science in order to boost food security, reports Trust.

Carlos Nobre, national secretary of Research and Development Policies and Programmes in Brazil's ministry of Science and Technology made the call as the global population is expected to reach nine billion by 2050.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that he affirmed science as having a fundamental role to play, hence agriculture must become more resilient and the development of scientific knowledge must bolster sustainability and food security.

Nobre who is also a member of the Independent Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, comprising prominent scientists from 13 countries also made known that one-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. Read more

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Call for Entry - DigitalSENSE Africa Media Students’ Essay Contest 2012 on IG4D

DigitalSENSE Africa Media has announced its annual Essay Competition on Internet Governance for Development (IG4D). Topic: "Internet Governance and Mobile Economy in Nigeria."
The annual DigitalSENSE Africa essay competition is open to students between the ages of 18 to 30 years. Interested candidates are to write an essay not more than 600 words on the above topic.
Entries are to be submitted on or before April 27th, 2012 to                                 info@digitalsenseafrica.com.ng and copy remnekkv@gmail.com.
Winning selected essay will be published in our internationally-award winning ITRealms Online with profiling of the winner. Also, the winner will be sponsored to attend the forthcoming West African Internet Governance Forum scheduled for July 2-4, 2012 in Sierra Leone.

What our Panel of Judges are looking for:
1.    An essay that examines various advantages and disadvantages of topic of the year.
2.    The role of internet governance to the success or otherwise.
3.    Written in simple and clear language
4.    A Contestant must be a Nigerian student
5.    Proper identification of contestants: scanned copy of student ID
6.    Essay not in excess of 600 words on the above topic.
7.    One entry per contestant
8.    Originality, Clarity, Grammar and Presentation.

For further inquiries:
Executive Director, Operations
234-809900183
info@digitalsenseafrica.com.ng
CC: remnekkv@gmail.com.
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