Farmers grappling with drought, urgently need seed - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

A new drought response plan will help estimated 1.4 million of the most vulnerable drought-affected people in Afghanistan during the coming winter season and into April next year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced today on the sidelines of the Geneva Conference on Afghanistan, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Around 10.6 million people, or close to half of the country’s rural population, are severely food insecure. This level of hunger has many causes, including years of civil unrest, but it has been made worse by a damaging drought triggered by low snowfall last winter followed by rainfall of up to 70 per cent less than normal in some places. Many families have resorted to desperate coping measures including skipping meals, selling off their livestock or moving to makeshift displacement camps.

FAO is working with partner organizations to provide vulnerable farmers in 22 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces – particularly households headed by women or people with disabilities – with urgently-needed wheat seeds and fertilizers in time for the winter planting season, when much-needed rains are forecast to finally arrive.

Livestock protection measures, including concentrated livestock feed, fodder crop seed, and animal health services are also being provided. Livestock are a key source of food and livelihoods for the majority of rural Afghans; keeping livestock healthy through the harsh winter is therefore essential for rural food security, preserves breeding stocks and sustains rural livelihoods for the coming years.

FAO’s drought response plan is also intended to help people stay at their places of origin and reduce drought-induced displacements.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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9mobile partners Ignitia for farmers sake - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Telecommunications company, 9mobile, in partnership with weather forecasting portal, Ignitia, have launched a weather forecast service, tagged Iska, to enable farmers predict weather accurately before and during the planting season, reports NaijaAgroNet.

With Iska Weather Service, NaijaAgroNet gathered that farmers in Nigeria could now predict the weather with over 80% forecast accuracy, thereby empowering them to prepare against adverse weather conditions that can impact negatively on their crops.

Also, event planners, traders, and other people whose means of livelihood or activities can be adversely impacted by poor weather, can also benefit from Iska Weather Service in planning their events or activities so they can operate optimally, unhindered by weather conditions.

Speaking about this newest innovative service, Head Digital Media, 9mobile, Bolanle Afuye, said Iska Weather Service will provide 9mobile consumers with localised weather forecasts via SMS and USSD, with 84% forecast accuracy.

She equally said the service offers subscribers access to Ignitia’s daily 2-day weather forecast service on rainfall risk, timing and intensity, along with the monthly and seasonal outlooks once per month.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Workshop participants confirm capacity gaps on cassava, maize, rice and cattle farmers - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Participants at a three-day workshop by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) rose affirm that there are capacity gaps on cassava, maize, rice and cattle farmers, reports NaijaAgroNet.

They also reaffirmed FARA readiness to leverage Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme to support the African Development Bank and the Regional Agricultural Transformation Programmes supported by the World Bank, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This is in addition to partnership mapping of FARA’s Holistic Empowerment for Livelihood Programme (HELP), describing it as an opportunity matrix on available partnerships and training opportunities in Brazil, Cuba, Egypt & India, will be used to develop HELP country-based approach capacity building and innovation network that feed into the larger initiatives.

Speaking at the workshop, the Executive Director of FARA, Dr Yemi Akinbamijo, declared that the march towards a food secure Africa and meeting the overarching developmental targets requires holistic capacity development approach to strengthen individual, organizational and systemic capacities.

FARA he said, recognizes the South-South collaboration framework as an important vehicle, stressing that the philosophy behind HELP is the promotion of triangular collaboration involving the private sector, universities/research centres and policy makers among African countries and their counter parts in the so-called South, based on solidarity that breaks the traditional donor-recipient relationship, under a win-win situation.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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IFAD wants increased access to finance for smallholder farmers - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Indications have emerged that over 440,000 smallholder farmers in Mali to have better access to rural financial services thanks to a new agreement signed on 6 July by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Republic of Mali, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The new agreement will provide financial support to the Inclusive Finance in Agricultural Value Chain Project (INCLUSIF), which will be implemented in five regions of the country (Koulikoro, Sikasso, Kayes, Ségou and Mopti). By providing a range of financial products, including savings, credit and micro-insurance, the project will enable smallholder farmers to invest in the necessary infrastructure and equipment that will help them produce, store, process and better market their products.

“INCLUSIF’s vision is to promote the sustainable transformation of agricultural value chains by improving financial inclusion for disadvantaged groups, such as women and young people, and their organizations,” said Philippe Rémy, IFAD Country Programme Manager for Mali.

Rémy said INCLUSIF will bring 440,000 smallholders and 360 agricultural professional organizations into the banking system. In addition, over 40,000 producers will have access to financing for climate change adaptation. The project will also develop profitable and sustainable relationships with the private sector and the financial system.

Currently, financial inclusion in Mali’s rural areas stands at 20 per cent. Small and medium-sized enterprises also experience difficulties in accessing finance. In 2016, less than 1 per cent of bank credit went to the agricultural sector.

The total cost of the project is US$105.5 million, including a $22.9 million loan and $22.9 million grant from IFAD. The project will be cofinanced by the Government of Denmark ($21.6 million), rural finance institutions ($15.5 million), the ABC Microfinance (Babyloan) ($0.4 million), the private sector ($5.4 million), the Government of Mali ($4.6 million) and by the beneficiaries themselves ($1.9 million). The financing gap of $10.4 million will be covered from future IFAD financing rounds or by other potential cofinancing partners.

The financial agreement was signed by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, and Boubou Cissé, Minister of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Mali.

Since 1982, IFAD has financed 14 rural development programmes and projects in Mali at a total cost of $630 million, with an IFAD investment of $274.9 million. These programmes and projects have directly benefitted more than 516,000 rural households.

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Support to smallholder farmers, women, youth top agenda @Mauritania

NaijaAgroNet:

The imperative of supporting smallholder farmers, women and youth are top on the agenda for a forthcoming meeting between the President of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Mr. Gilbert F. Houngbo, and Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The meeting, according to David Florentin Paqui of IFAD Communications Division in Nouakchott, affirmed to NaijaAgroNet, said would be witnessed by senior officials of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, to discuss how investment in agriculture could ensure food and nutrition security and create jobs for rural people, particularly women and youth.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that in Mauritania, 41 per cent of the population lives in rural areas, and half depend on agriculture for their income, whereas farming generates 25 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), hence, small farms are vital for the country’s food security as well as its economy.

During an official three-day visit to the country starting Monday, April 9, Houngbo hinted his meeting with the Mauritanian President and Prime Minister, Yahya Ould Hademine would have support for smallholders farmers, women and youth top on agenda.

In addition, NaijaAgroNet gathered that a joint working meeting with the Minister of Economy and Finance, the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Livestock and the Minister of Environment will focus on the role of smallholder farmers in ensuring food security in Mauritania, the challenge of climate change, and the opportunities agriculture can offer to young people in rural areas.

Investing in a new generation of smallholder farmers is essential. Of Mauritania’s 4 million people, 40 per cent are under 15 years of age, 60 per cent are under 25 and only 5 per cent are over 60. Half of the population derives their livelihoods from raising crops and livestock and fishing. Although the country is self-sufficient in red meat and fish, it imports 60 per cent of other staple foodstuffs, particularly rice, vegetables, sugar and cooking oil.

IFAD and the government of Mauritania are working together to improve food security and nutrition, increase the incomes of poor rural households, create jobs and reduce the country's dependence on food imports. Since 1980, IFAD has financed 14 projects and programmes in Mauritania for a total of $342.3 million, including $136.2 million from IFAD’s own resources, directly benefitting nearly 190,470 Mauritanian rural households.

Houngbo will deliver a keynote address at the opening session of the Regional Implementation Forum organized in Nouakchott by the West and Central Africa Division of IFAD. Later, he will join Lemina Mint El Ghotob Ould Moma, Minister of Agriculture, in Kiffa to meet with rural people benefiting from an IFAD-supported Poverty Reduction Project in Aftout South and Karakoro – Phase II designed to help build, an economic and social fabric based on sustainable natural resource management that is inclusive of poor rural households, particularly women and young people. Because of its achievements in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, this project was a recipient of a 2017 IFAD Gender Award.

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Amb. Idro disappointed by elites, says they abandoned women farmers

NaijaAgroNet:

The chairman of the Uganda-based Leveraging Excellence in Agricultural Development (LEAD), Ambassador Philip Idro has expressed disappointment on elites claiming to be championing growth of agriculture on the continent of Africa, alleging they have abandoned women farmers, reports NaijaAgroNet.

He made his views known at the sideline events on Accelerating Africa’s Rise: Maximising Non-State Actors’ Potential for Results and Impact at the 2016 African Green Revolution Forum ongoing in Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Amb. Idro described women as the brains behind the food on the glass tables of the elites.

Amb. Idro charged the facilitators of the session, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Non-State Actors Coalition (CNC) to be more people oriented, because no matter whatever happens, the people are the majority and even more than those in government, but needed adequate mobilization and enlightenment.

The former Ugandan ambassador to China also lamented that despite the role of women in development of agriculture, large number of them especially in Africa have been abandon and neglected in the rural areas by those who should cater for them.

These attitudes, he said, have led to lack of social amenities to better the lives of these women and children who form large number of the smallholders and subsistence farmers across the continent.

“I am disappointed at the elites who have abandoned our rural women,” he decried, noting that these women from day breaks, wake up to ensure there is food prepared for everyone in the house including their husbands, and use estimated about two-hours to search and fetch water daily, very often with children at the back.

He also lamented that infact by the time they finished preparing breakfast and head to the farms, a little time later, it will be lunch and then after working all day, gets home to start another round of dinner preparation and of course without forgetting to make the husband happy eventually.

He wondered why such a person or group of persons will not fail sick if not by the grace of God, stressing that unfortunately, those who have passed through these rural women, forget soon and very easily to plough back in the areas of improving their lives with social amenities like good roads to move their produce to a larger market, clinics and schools.

Ambassador Idro, therefore charged the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Non-State Actors Coalition (CNC) to work on reversing these trends so as to properly empower women especially in Africa.

Other panelists at the session include the Executive Director, ACORD, Mr. Ousainou Ngum, One Campiaign representative to the African Union (AU) and East Africa, Dorine Nininahazwe, Deputy Regional Director at Oxfam, Ms Dedo Mate-Kodjo, deputy chairman of CNC, Mr. Cris Muyunda, chief executive officer of East Africa Farmers Federation, Mr. Stephen Muchiri and was moderated by the Executive Director, Local Development Research Institute (LDRI), Mr. Muchiri Nyaggah.

Remmy Nweke in Nairobi/GEE

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Pix: Amb. Idro speaking

Farmers, backbone for food, nutrition security – Gornass

NaijaAgroNet:

The Chairperson of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), Ambassador Amira Gornass has described farmers as the backbone of any efforts for food and nutrition security, report NaijaAgroNet.

Ambassador Gornass gave this description in her video message to the opening ceremony of the 2016 General Assembly of the World Farmers Organisation (WFO) holding in Livingstone, Zambia on the theme, Partnership for Growth.

“Farmers are the backbone of any efforts for food and nutrition security” she declared.

Gornass who also is the Permanent Representative of the Sudan to FAO noted that the role of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the context of food security and nutrition (VGGT) cannot be over-emphasised.

She pointed out that the guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security in 2012 serves as a reference to improve the governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests with the overarching goal of achieving food security for all and supporting the progressive realization of the right to adequate food.

“An effective implementation of this instrument will be achieved only if also farmers will advocate for the application of the guidelines at the country level,” she said.

WFC, Gornass said, should never forget that according the recently released figures, in the middle of the 21st century, 793 million is still going to bed hungry.

“The challenges to ensure their rights to adequate food are huge,” she said, maintaining that farmers are the most powerful solution to global hunger and malnutrition.

“Farmers are responsible for providing the food we all need,” she said, encourage adequate management of farm lands.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Pix: Ambassador Amira Gornass

Smallholder farmers need agribusiness skills to succeed–Nnaemego

NaijaAgroNet:

 

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

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Fish breeding: 50 researchers, technicians, others set to breed tilapia in Cuba

NaijaAgroNet

About 50 researchers, technicians and farmers working in Cuba will be involved in the breeding and fattening of tilapia in Cuba, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The director, Base Business Unit (UEB ), Zenaida Arboleya, said this is a programme that seeks to achieve more efficient fish by breeding, which has a component of training and consulting services.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is about launch a freshwater fish breeding programme in Cuba.

NaijaAgroNet learnt that the programme will include training and introduction to fish breeding, according to Carlos Pulgarín, an FAO officer in Panama, serving the Caribbean and Central America.

He further said that the project is expected to begin this year in the Base Business Unit (UEB, in Spanish) El Dique, a part of the Company for the Development of Aquaculture Techniques, located in Loma de Tierra, in the municipality of Cotorro, Havana.

Cyriacus Nnaji with additional report from The Fish Site/GEE

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G-Soko platform to connect farmers for grains

NaijaAgroNet:

G-Soko, a platform to connect farmers to grain buyers was launched recently in Nairobi, Kenya, NaijaAgroNetreports.

The platform, invented by a Kenyan-based Information Technology(IT) company, Virtual City in collaboration with the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) and the Food Trade Eastern and Southern Africa Organization, is an online trading platform which would enable Smallholder farmers in the East Africa to sell their produce at favourable prices.

The Secretary General, the East African Community, Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera, commended EAGC for partnering with the Secretariat to implement the EAC Food Security Action Plan, which is the community’s strategy to achieve food security in the region.

The Executive Director of EAGC, Mr. Gerald Masila, at the event said, G-Soko was part of a five-year trade promotion programme in the region, adding that linking rural food production zones in East Africa to urban consumption centres demands a well-functioning regional market and system whereby farmers in the region will be able to access credit while waiting for prices to increase through pledging the electronic warehouse receipt with the banks and agro-dealers.

The farmers will also benefit from reduced post-harvest losses through access to professional storage, cleaning, drying and will benefit from improved prices discovery since many of them rely on farm-gate prices that deliver cash at lower prices.As for Millers, G-Soko system guarantees availability of quality stocks; standardized and proven grading thus reducing need to carry out sampling to check quality.

The G-Soko, NaijaAgroNet learnt, is now operational in two of the EAC Partner States; Uganda and Kenya, and arrangements are underway to extend the system to Tanzania and Rwanda before the Grains Farmers Summit scheduled to take place in Rwanda in early October, 2015.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE with addition sourcefrom East African Community Secretariat (EAC)
 
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Pix: The Executive Director of EAGC, Mr. Gerald Masila,

Over $20m needed to rescue Nepal farmers – FAO

NaijaAgroNet

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as part of the revised United Nations (UN) Flash Appeal for Nepal has said over $20 million is urgently needed to support farmers in earthquake-hit Nepal to resume agricultural activities, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The organization seeking to starve off the threat of prolonged food insecurity facing an estimated one million people, NaijaAgroNet learnt has received only 13 per cent of the $23.4 million emergency agricultural assistance.

The disaster, according to an FAO-led Agricultural Livelihood Impact Appraisal, has disrupted agricultural activities threatening the livelihoods of rural families, hitting hard in six Nepal districts causing half of all farming households to lose nearly all of their stored crops of rice, maize, wheat and millet, with some 16 percent of cattle and 36 percent of poultry lost in the disaster creating a detrimental effect on rural household consumption and income.

A representative of FAO in Nepal, Somsak Pipoppinyo told NaijaAgroNet that two-thirds of Nepalis depend on farming for their livelihood, "agriculture is a critical priority because two-thirds of Nepalis depend on farming for their livelihoods,’ he added that,’current levels of international assistance for Nepal's earthquake-affected farmers will deliver ‘only a fraction’ of the assistance urgently required."

Somsak also stressed that there is limited window to act, noting how rice seeds have to be distributed urgently before the start of the heavy monsoon rains which are expected to arrive in the coming days.

In addition, FAO’s appraisal team, noted that the repair and functioning of irrigation systems will be critical for the winter cropping season, as well as barley and wheat seeds and recommends that the most urgent needs for the current cropping season are seeds and fertilizers, followed by irrigation, tools and technical support, as well as urgent shelter, feed water, medicine and vaccinations, for livestock breeding.

NaijaAgroNet learnt that the organization has received around $3 million for emergency relief from Belgium, Italy and Norway; which has aided it to distribute 40,000 (5 kilogram) bags of rice seeds to the six most-affected districts of Dhading, Dolakha, Gorkha, Nuwakot, Rasuwa and Sindhupalchowk, in time for farmers to plant before the monsoon.

Daniel Nsolibe/GEE

  

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