ActionAid urges immediate creation of Agriculture Emergency Fund - NaijaAgroNet

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ActionAid Nigeria has called for the immediate creation of a separate Agricultural Emergency Fund outside the 2023 budget for agriculture.

Mr Azubike Nwokoye, the Food and Agriculture Programme Manager of the organisation, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

Group urges South, Middle Belt Governors to reject FG's armed agro-rangers - NaijaAgroNet

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The Pan Yoruba self-determination coalition known as Apapo Oodua Koya (AOKOYA), has urged the South and Middle Belt State Governors to reject the agro-rangers which the Federal Government of Nigeria has proposed to deploy to states, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to the group in a press statement available to NaijaAgroNet, 'This is RUGA in disguise. It is an attempt to give protection to violent pastorist Fulanis, who are bent on taking over Yoruba territories by force of arms."

FLOOD: ALeP urges NEMA, Anambra State govt to assist Awba-Ofemili victims - NaijaAgroNet

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The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Anambra State government led by Prof. Chukwuma Soludo have been asked to urgently assist flood victims in Awba-Ofemili town among others.

Awba-Ofemili is a community in Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State and was heavily ravaged by the recent flood, sacking some villages including in Umuosite and some parts of Ege, Nkpuocha, Oka-akwu, Ngene Nkpumekwu communities to name a few.

Climate change: Oxfam says planet on fire, urges African governments on swift action - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a report detailing progress and pathways to liming global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, with Oxfam International lamenting that the rising temperatures on the continent will push millions into poverty and hunger, unless governments take swift action, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Responding to the report, Mr. Apollos Nwafor, Pan Africa Director of Oxfam International said the climate change has set the planet on fire, as millions are already feeling the impacts, and the IPCC just showed that things can get much worse.

"Settling for 2 degrees would be a death sentence for people in many parts of Africa. The faster governments embrace the renewable energy revolution and move to protect communities at risk, the more lives and livelihoods that will be spared.

“A hotter Africa is a hungrier Africa. Today at only 1.1 degrees of warming globally, crops and livestock across the region are being hit and hunger is rising, with poor small scale women farmers, living in rural areas suffering the most. It only gets worse from here.

“To do nothing more and simply follow the commitments made in the Paris Agreement condemns the world to 3 degrees of warming. The damage to our planet and humanity would be exponentially worse and irreparable.

“None of this is inevitable. What gives us hope is that some of the poorest and lowest emitting countries are now leading the climate fight. We've moved from an era of 'you first' to 'follow me' - it's time for the rich world to do just that.

“Oxfam calls for increased, responsible and accountable climate finance from rich countries that supports small scale farmers, especially women to realize their right to food security and climate justice.

“While time is short, there is still a chance of keeping to 1.5 degrees of warming. We must reject any false solution like Large Scale Land Based Investments that means kicking small scale farmers off their land to make way for carbon farming and focus instead on stopping our use of fossil fuels, starting with an end to building new coal power stations worldwide,” he said.

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Make family planning sermons, media executive urges religious leaders

NaijaAgroNet:

Religious leaders In Nigeria have been urged to make family planning a key subject in their sermons, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Leadership Newspapers, Mr Dele Fanimo, gave this charge at the Lagos office, when a delegation of Family Planning Media Advocacy Working Group (FPMAWG) led by its chairperson, Mrs. Chioma Umeha, paid him an advocacy visit.

Churches and mosques, he told NaijaAgroNet, need to do more, underlining the fact that some of these things should form part of the Sunday sermon and Friday mosque service.

“They need to demystify the myths and misconceptions to their members. Imagine a woman attaching child birth to inheritance. Some will say, if you live in a man’s house and no so, you will suffer when the man dies.

“Not able to cater for a large family can also lead to corruption because when you have more than you can care for, you would be forced to steal,” he bemoaned.

He also called on traditional leaders, religious leaders and political elites to help and demystify the myths and misconceptions of family planning as the media alone cannot do it.

As part of contributing its quarter in creating more awareness on FP, Fanimo assured FPMAWG that Leadership Newspaper is ready to work with them, declaring that he and Leadership team are already converts on FP.

Fanimo, accompanied by the acting General Manager, Southern Operation at Leadership, Mrs. Angela Tony Iji, further urged the FPMAWG to see beyond newspaper publications but go to the rural communities, community leaders and other stakeholders to sensitize them on the importance of FP.

“… They in turn will now be an advocate of family planning,” he declared.

The working group chairperson, Mrs. Umeha, noted that Family Planning (FP) has been a worldwide issue, which paved the way to an international Family Planning Summit in London on July 11, 2017, to discuss efforts to reach the FP 2020 goals and ensure that more women and girls around the world are able to plan their families and their future.

Umeha at the advocacy visit was in the company of Chioma Obinna of Vanguard Newspapers and Remmy Nweke of DigitalSENSE Africa Media, publishers of NaijaAgroNet, pointed out that the Summit made a commitment to increase the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) from 15 percent to 27 percent by 2020 at that meeting.

He also said that in Nigeria, government at both the Federal and State have shown commitment to the provision of free FP services to the entire women of child-bearing age in the country.

Further, she said that family planning initiatives when effectively done, could reduce maternal deaths by up to 34 per cent and newborn death by about 15 per cent.

Also, the chairperson’s team included Pastor Olusegun Omotayo Adeboye as well as Mrs Shotomiwa Olubunmi, both of Lagos Advocacy Working Group (LAWG) and Public Health Sustainable Advocacy Initiative (PHSAI).

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Group urges IGP to disarm Hausa-Fulani in Benue

NaijaAgroNet

The Tiv community in Lagos State, under the auspices of Mdzough U Tiv (MUT), has called on the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim K.Idris, to  urgently disarm the irate Hausa -Fulani youths in Benue State, especially Makurdi, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This call was made through MUT President General, Prince Aondowase Ikyernum Kajo, following Saturday and Sunday night attacks on their host community in Wadata area of Makurdi where some Tiv residents were killed, others sustained varying degrees of injuries and their houses burnt by the rampaging youths.

They alleged that intelligence information at their disposal indicated that there is a huge stockpile of dangerous arms and ammunitions in mosques, homes, shops and many other unidentified places by the Hausa -Fulani residents in the state.

With the kind of arms these rampaging youths were brandishing, and recklessly attacking Makurdi residents, it means they are well prepared to do the worst, hence, the urgent need to clampdown on the aforementioned places and confiscate those weapons.

It would amount to double standards by the Nigerian security agencies (soldiers) who hastily arrested the Benue State livestock guards who were on a legitimate duty protecting their communities against marauding Fulani herdsmen terrorists but looked the other way when other tribes are causing severe harm to the lives and property of our people with more highly sophisticated weapons.

Remember that during the state government Amnesty program, only  Benue indigenes submitted over 700 arms to the state. It is not logical for people who are armless to be living in the midst of their dangerously armed visitors that are daily inflicting pains on them unchallenged.

We also warn that those sponsoring these irate youths recently drafted to Benue with no viable source of living to cause chaos paving the way for a declaration of state of emergency in Benue should have a rethink as such diabolical agenda would not succeed in our state.

We thank the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, for standing firm with his people in these trying times. We also thank the Benue Traditional Council, led by HRM Prof. James Ayatse, Tor Tiv V, heads of all the socio-cultural organizations in the state and religious leaders for their efforts to see that these unprovoked attacks on our people stop.

We equally thank other critical stakeholders in this struggle to save our lives especially media professionals, social media activist, civil society organizations, the good people of Benue and well meaning Nigerians for standing with us.

We deeply sympathize with the families who lost their loved ones and  also wish the injured speedy recovery.

This is as we call on President Buhari who is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces to end this pogroms against Benue people by Fulani herdsmen terrorists.

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AfDB urges leaders to make agriculture attractive for young Africans

NaijaAgroNet:

The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has urged African leaders to make agriculture attractive for the younger generation, reports NaijaAgroNet.

He was speaking on the occasion of the 2017 World Food Day, AfDB president highlighted how Africa’s food security depends on attracting young people to agriculture and agribusiness. The sector can potentially create wealth and employment for African youth, thereby stemming migration.

World Food Day, celebrated yearly on October 16, promotes worldwide awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger and the need to ensure food security and nutritious diets for all, which this year’s theme focused on the need to ‘Change the future of migration; Invest in food security and rural development’.

The AfDB’s ENABLE Youth programme, which grooming a crop of young agriculturists, is on course to make this happen.

Mahmud Johnson, 26, is the Founder of J-Palm Liberia which works to improve income for Liberia’s smallholder oil palm farmers by 50-80 per cent. He is also creating additional jobs for over 1,000 young people to work as sales representatives for his products.

“Despite the tremendous odds, we (African youth) are determined to maximize our abundant agricultural resources to create wealth, jobs, and socioeconomic opportunities in our countries and across the continent. We need our stakeholders to view us as serious partners in Africa’s transformation, and to work with us to expand our enterprises,” Mahmud said.

Mahmud and some of his employees have benefited from capacity building programs under the AfDB’s Empowering Novel Agri-Business-Led Employment for Youth initiative.

Like Mahmud, many African youth are passionate about staying back on the continent to create wealth and employment, if given the tools and opportunities to put their skills to use. Under the ENABLE Youth program, the Bank is working with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to develop a new generation of young commercial farmers and agribusiness entrepreneurs.

“Our goal is to develop 10,000 such young agricultural entrepreneurs per country in the next 10 years. In 2016, the Bank provided US $700 million to support this program in eight countries and we've got requests now from 33 countries,” said Adesina.

The Bank considers investment in agriculture as key to making Africa youths prosperous, thereby stemming the tide of migration.

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FAO urges support for small farmers’ adaption to climate change

NaijaAgroNet:

Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has urged more support for small farmers to enable them adapt to climate change, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Failure to act now, FOA said will affect food systems being more resilient to climate change, thus "seriously compromise" food production in many regions and could doom to failure international efforts to end hunger and extreme poverty by 2030.

Director-General, FAO, Mr. José Graziano da Silva gave this caution on Monday, at a roundtable on climate change during the World Government Summit in Dubai, saying that agriculture holds the key to solving two of the greatest problems now facing humanity: eradicating poverty and hunger, and contributing to maintaining the stable climatic conditions in which civilization can thrive.

He stressed in particular the need to support smallholder farmers in the developing world adapt to climate change.

"The vast majority of the extremely poor and hungry depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. They are the most vulnerable to the impacts of global warming and an unstable climate," he said.

Innovative approaches, he said, exist that could help them improve yields and build their resilience, he said, such as green manuring, greater use of nitrogen-fixing cover crops, improving sustainable soil management, agroforestry techniques, and integrating animal production into cropping systems.

"But farmers face major barriers, such as the lack of access to credit and markets, lack of knowledge and information, insecurity about land tenure, and high transaction costs of moving away from existing practices," the Director-General noted.

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MIIVOC urges Wike to intervene over Egi Community, Total face-off

NaijaAgroNet:

A non-governmental organisation, the Media Initiative against Injustice, Violence and Corruption (MIIVOC) has urged the Rivers State Governor, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike to step in and resolve the difference between the Egi Community in Ogba Egbema Ndoni Local Government Area of the State and Total Oil Company in the area before it escalates, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Making this call recently, the Executive Director, MIIVOC, Dr. Walter Duru, warned in Port Harcourt that the lingering disagreement between the two parties could worsen the already threatened security situation in the area.

He noted recent newspapers report that a group identified as Egi Freedom Fighters gave conditions for acceptance of the state government’s amnesty, stressing that among their demands were the rebuilding of houses of members of the community, allegedly destroyed by the military at the instance of the oil company, employment and scholarship opportunities, skills acquisition, capacity development, among others.

“I have not read any reaction from Total Oil Company, accepting that they sent the military to destroy the people’s houses or denying it. It does not appear to me like a good strategy. Although they did not indict the state government, the government’s response so far could be better,” he said.

Dr. Duru, who also is Chairman, Board of the Freedom of Information Coalition, Nigeria, lamented that if urgent steps are not taken, the begging peaceful situation in that community could degenerate.

“I am afraid that if the parties do not find a way to resolve the issues, the tension in the area could be further heightened. ONELGA LGA is already tensed. Omoku community is today a shadow of itself. Government must be strategic in its engagements, to ensure that the near culture of violence in the area is not sustained. The group’s demands, apart from that of rebuilding of houses, are not different from the age-long issues and causes of agitation in the Niger Delta. The group has listed their demands. There has to be a way out. Let the government intervene,” he said.

Duru who is a member of the Federal Government’s Steering Committee on the Open Government Partnership, beckoned on the State governor, as Chief Security Officer of the State to step in, reach out to the parties and, if possible, involve an independent Civil Society Organisation to broker peace among the parties.

“Whatever strategy to be adopted must be such that can stand the test of time and ensure sustainable peace in the area,” he declared.

Further, Dr. Duru argued that it is easier to prevent the escalation of the issue, than to manage the crises when it eventually escalates, urging the government to act quickly.

“The state government’s amnesty programme appears to be working. Many have embraced it. 

However, borrowing a leaf from the parable of the lost sheep in the Bible, Governor Wike, as father of the state should look into the matter dispassionately and ensure that justice is done. Let a platform be created for dialogue between the community and the company so the issues would be addressed. Applying force in the matter could backfire. Let dialogue be the instrument,” he said.

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D-G urges effective implementation of global anti-rogue fishing treaty

NaijaAgroNet:

The recent entry into force of a ground-breaking international accord on illegal fishing is a welcome development but it now requires "strong and effective implementation", says Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva, reports NaijaAgroNet.  

In his speech at the Our Ocean Conference in the United States capital, Graziano da Silva lauded the signatories of the FAO-brokered Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (PSMA).

Also, da Silva provided United States Secretary of State John Kerry with an update on the status of the treaty, which came into force in June.

"In 2014 only 10 nations had ratified the PSMA," Kerry noted in his conference address. "All of us then decided that we could do better and we did ... because more than 60 nations have now ratified the PSMA and that is critical," he said, urging all other countries to follow suit in adhering to the treaty.

"We need everyone to come onboard, otherwise rogue fishing vessels will continue to find ways to land and introduce their illegal catches into the markets of non-PSMA countries," da Silva said.

He likened adherence to the treaty to the international community's commitment to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), "a situation in which no one can be left behind."

NaijaAgroNet recalls that under the treaty, parties are obliged to implement a number of measures while managing ports under their control, to detect illegal fishing, preventing ill-caught fish from being offloaded and sold, and ensuring that information on unscrupulous vessels is shared globally.

FAO has launched a global programme to support countries with the implementation of the treaty and complimentary instruments, Graziano da Silva said. These include the Voluntary Guidelines on Flag State Performance, which spell out a range of actions that countries can take to ensure that vessels registered under their flags do not conduct illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

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Pix: FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva

Conde urges improved fisheries governance in Africa, reiterates AU commitment

NaijaAgroNet:

The President of the Republic of Guinea, Professor Alpha Conde, has urged for improved fisheries governance on the continent of Africa, reiterating African Union (AU) commitment to conducive environment, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Conde in a keynote address at the 32nd Session of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Committee on Fisheries (COFI) held recently in Rome, declared that his initiatives as champion will reinforce the efforts already undertaken by the African Union in creating an environment conducive to dialogue on African development issues.

Conde who also doubles as the NEPAD Agency’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Champion, implored African Ambassadors and Permanent Representatives to the United Nations agencies based in Rome to drum support for continuous improvement in the governance of the fisheries sector in Africa.

President Conde further committed himself to support the implementation of reforms in the fisheries sector for effective governance of this important sector towards Africa’s development.

The contribution of fisheries to national economies in Africa is quite significant.  Revenues amount to nearly $24 billion per year, representing 1.26 per cent of the continent’s GDP and 6.02 per cent of its agricultural GDP.  Moreover, the sector provides more than 12 million people with direct employment. Women account for a quarter of the workforce in the sector and are also active in fish processing.

FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, in his remarks, emphasised that fisheries and aquaculture are not only important for eradication of poverty and hunger, but are also key to improving nutrition.

Challenges, he said, exist in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors that require urgent action, stressing that among them are the over-exploitation of fishery resources, the growing expansion of international demand for fish to which is added the lack of capacity of African institutions for adequate management of fisheries resources on the continent. 

Mr. Jose further said that the result of this is that Africa generally has the lowest fish consumption, estimated at 9 kg per capita, which represents less than half of the world average of 21 kg.  The per capita consumption is expected to decline further due to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

NaijaAgroNet, to counter the challenges of fishing on the continent, African Heads of State and Government adopted a policy framework and a fisheries and aquaculture reform strategy in July 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, with the aim of improving governance of the sector for the benefit of its people.

In addition African countries including Benin, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa and Sudan are party to FAO’s international accord aimed at stamping out illegal fishing which came into effect in June 2016.  The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (PSMA) is the world's first illegal fishing treaty.

Mr. Jose Graziano da Silva encouraged other countries to also be party to this agreement as soon as possible. “The agreement must be used with other tools in order to attain sustainable and legal fisheries. Generations to come will recognise the importance of this achievement,” he said.

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