Inadequate funding, bane of food security in Southern Africa

NaijaAgroNet:

 

Inadequate funding has been identified as the bane of the low level of assistance project in the battle for food security in the Southern Africa, reports NaijaAgroNet reports.

According to FEWS NET which estimates that most parts of the region will remain food secure throughout the outlook period, as at October 2013.

NaijaAgroNet reports that pockets of acute food insecurity existed in areas with reduced 2012/13 harvests due to shocks such as mid-season dry spells, pest infestations, and flooding.

Food access by households, NaijaAgroNet gathered that in these areas is already problematic, and the lean season is indicated to have begun earlier than the normal October/November start.

Throughout the outlook period; Stressed (IPC Phase 2) and Minimal (IPC Phase 1) outcomes are expected in localized parts of Zimbabwe and Malawi in the presence of humanitarian assistance.

This was attributed to insufficient resource levels, with funds currently estimated at approximately 60 per cent of needs in both countries. The report pointed out that in parts of Malawi, outcomes worsened to Crisis (IPC Phase 3) between January and March as resources dwindle and assistance is interrupted.

Intra-regional trade, the report emphasised is stabilizing staple grain supplies, in addition to formal and informal cross border trade especially exports from surplus producing parts of Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and South Africa; were expected to continue to play a key role in supplying deficit area markets across the region.

However, staple food prices were reportedly rising seasonably, prices remain high and are increasing faster in areas where market supplies are atypically low. Although estimated regional production is similar to last year and above the five‐year average, tradable supplies were tighter due to localized production deficits in 2013, lower carry-over stocks, and strong export demand.

This is expected to continue to exert atypical upward pressure on maize prices.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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FAO, WHO host preparatory technical meeting on nutrition

NaijaAgroNet:

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Health Organisation (WHO), Wednesday commence a three-day preparatory technical meeting on nutrition in Rome on major nutrition challenges (ICN2).

The meeting is also expected to enhance international cooperation, even as they would collaborate with the Italian Foreign Ministry on Thursday to host the ‘Gender, nutrition and agriculture’ side-event.

NaijaAgroNet reports that the United Nations (UN) System Standing Committee on Nutrition seminar with Bioversity International and Govt of Malawi on nutrition and sustainability was held on Tuesday.

Also NaijaAgroNet reports that everyone has the right to good nutrition and yet the figures showed that all too many people are denied this right.

“Some 842 million people are chronically hungry, but many more die or suffer the ill effects of inadequate nutrition,” experts from FAO disclosed, while about 2 billion people are affected by micronutrient deficiencies.

In addition, NaijaAgroNet gathered that an estimated 7 million children die before their fifth birthday every year, 162 million children under five are stunted while at the same time, 500 million people are obese.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that over 50 countries and many international experts will gather at FAO headquarters in Rome to focus on ways to speed up improvements in nutrition - especially in developing countries, through policy changes, international coordination and the exchange of knowledge.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Pix: Graziano da Silva  DG, FAO

Awka residents decry kerosene scarcity

NaijaAgroNet:

Inhabitants of Awka, the capital of Anambra State have described the high prices of kerosene in the State, following the scarcity of the product, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) survey showed that the product was being sold at between N110 and N140 per liter as against the official pump price of N50 sold at the NNPC Mega Station in Awka.

Some attendants at independent filling stations visited said the high cost of kerosene was due to non-availability of the product to dealers.

Ifeanyi Nwamuo, an attendant with Total Filling Station at Ukwuoji, Awka, said that the product had not been supplied to the station in many months.

He said that the process of getting the product was hard and that failed attempts to secure supply had compelled their station to stop the procurement of kerosene.

Tina Nwaegbo, a private dealer also attributed the high cost of the commodity in Awka to the means of procurement and the large-scale bribery before getting the product.

Ms. Nwaegbo said that dealers needed to recover their expenses after procurement and that it was the end users who would bear the cost. She said that the Federal Government should make the business policy easy so as to eliminate third parties involved in kerosene procurement.

The NNPC Mega Station Manager in Awka, Ngozi Onyiliofor, said the station had been selling the product to the public at the approved pump price of 50k per liter.

Her colleague, Florence Nwaokoye, said that the supply of the product to station had been steady, compared to previous months when kerosene was out of supply in Awka and environs.

She urged the government to ensure availability of the product this season, to facilitate the celebration of Christmas. 

Isaac Oyima with additional reports from (NAN)

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Pix: courtesy Premium Times

Climate change: LDCs group make financial demands from rich nations

NaijaAgroNet:

The group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) at the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), may be spoiling for war as they are demanding climate finance figures from rich nations before December 2013.

Chairman of the LDCs group, Prakash Mathema of Nepal, made this disclosure to NaijaAgroNet at the end of international negotiations under the UNFCCC, insisting that greater financial transparency was needed to implement action to tackle climate change.

This, LDCs group said the industrialised nations should provide detailed information about the finance they are willing to provide to help the vulnerable adapt to climate change.

The LDC Group requests each industrialised country to provide information on the levels of finance they have provided in 2013 and how much they will provide in future years. The group requests this information to include precise allocations for adaptation specifically, along with a breakdown of how much finance is for the LDCs.

The LDCs requested that the richer nations provide this information at COP19, the 19th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC, which takes place in Warsaw at the end of the year.

As said by LDC Chairman, they expressed deepest appreciation to the Annex 1 Parties who have made substantial contributions towards supporting adaptation in the LDCs.

“But there is too much uncertainty about where the future funds will come from. Delayed climate action and lack of ambition to close the mitigation gap will cost more tomorrow than today. We need to move to a sustainable climate smart pathway where life is possible for all and for generations to come,” he said.

Further, the LDCs, with their weak adaptive capacity and their extreme vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change, have already witnessed many catastrophic climate disasters and these events are going to be more frequent, intense and unpredictable.

“We are all aware of the fact that the level of concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million, the highest level for some three million years. This is alarming. We lament the failure of parties to launch the negotiations under the UNFCCC’s subsidiary body for implementation at the UN negotiations which ended Monday,  November 11, 2013 in Bonn," he said.

This, LDCs said is of grave concern to the group as issues of implementation are key for the LDCs.

“We expect this not to happen again at COP19 in Warsaw later this year. Communities around the world have high expectations regarding this process and hope that we, as climate ambassadors, will take some bold decisions very soon to protect humanity from the adverse impacts of climate change. To implement such decisions, financial support is key. We need to act now and we need to act together,” the group said.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Artificial leaf ignites discuss on food security with molecular plants

NaijaAgroNet:

The presence of artificial leaves, otherwise known as ‘resurrection plants’ ignited discuss among 800 participants on food security with molecular plants at the 2013 Falling Walls Conference in Berlin.

NaijaAgroNet reports that international top scientists present at the 2013 Falling Walls Conference wondered, why they were given a piece of dry plant by Jill Farrant of Cape Town University. 

The resurrection plants are not known only as the lazy gardener’s best friend, but a real hope for the fight against hunger in the world says some experts, just as these plants could tolerate almost complete water loss from vegetative tissues.

The South African researcher, Jill Farrant expressed determination to find the secrets behind these self-protecting properties in order to improve the resistance of crop in Africa and to solve one of the world’s biggest problems – hunger.

NaijaAgroNet notes that this was of great importance for the African continent, where the impacts of climate change have devastating effects on agriculture and food security. 

However, Benjamin Barber from City University of New York managed to get the audience to think of city instead of nation states, stressing that a new global model of governance, in which cities are the key players.

NaijaAgroNet reports that Barber pointed out that nation states will not govern globally cities can.

“They already are. Half of the human race lives in cities and the influence of places like Mumbai, Nairobi, Sao Paulo or Manila has long transcended regional and national borders,” Barber said.

Emphasising that man cannot solve social problems like diseases, economic crisis or climate change on a national level, because his studies have shown that cities have the capacity to deal with internal and external issues and could easily replace the system of nation states in the future.

For Daniel Nocera, he predicted global demand in energy scaling up to 16 Terawatts in the next 37 years.

“I calculated that we will need 16 Terawatt more energy to meet the demand by 2050,” he said, recollecting that with the poor in mind, develop an artificial leave which, when placed in a glass of tap water and exposed to sunlight, is able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

“Both gases can then be collected, stored as fuel in private households and later be fed to fuel cells to generate electricity,” he suggested.

NaijaAgroNet reports that additional speakers included the Nobel Laureates Jules Hoffmann and Dan Shechtman, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Robert Kirshner from Harvard University, Onora O’Neill from Cambridge University, Sophia Vinagradov from the University of California and many more. More than 8000 viewers watched this year’s conference via livestream.

The Falling Walls Conference was first held in 2009 to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and has since developed into a highly acclaimed annual platform for top international research. The conference is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Helmholtz Association, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research, and a number of other leading research institutions, foundations and companies.

Remmy Nweke

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'Mobile phones indispensable to smallholder farmers transformation'

NaijaAgroNet:

Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, Mr. Michael Hailu has described Information and communication technology (ICT) tools as an indispensable to the transformation of small holder farmers reports NaijaAgroNet.

He made this known to NaijaAgroNet, at a recent conference on ICTs in agriculture in Kigali, Rwanda, which ended at the weekend.

Pan Africa News Agency (PANA) reports that the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) is a joint ACP-EU institution active in agricultural and rural development in ACP countries, with the mission to advance food and nutritional security, increase prosperity and encourage sound natural resource management in ACP countries.

Hailu was quoted as saying that on this continent, 65 per cent of the workforce is employed in agriculture and the sector generates 32 per cent of Gross domestic products - GDP. Smallholder farmers, mostly women, produce 80 per cent of Africa’s food,

African countries, he said, spend up to US$ 50 billion a year on food imports, stressing that with abundant land, water and cheap labour, there is no good reason why Africa should import so much food.

“Yet there’s good reason to be optimistic. After years of neglect, governments and the private sector are increasing investments in agriculture,' Hailu said.

To achieve its full potential, he posited that smallholder agriculture must be transformed from a subsistence activity to a profitable, sustainable business and ICTs play a vital role in this transformation.

"They provide timely advice and information. They help farmers increase productivity. They make markets more efficient. And they increase incomes," he said.

Emphasising that in 2000, there were just 16.5 million mobile subscriptions in Africa, 13 years later, there are over 650 million.

"Indeed, the number of people on the continent with access to mobile phones exceeds the number with access to clean water, electricity or a bank account” he said.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that ICT4Ag held under the theme 'The Digital Springboard for Inclusive Agriculture´ Conference, was hosted by CTA, the Rwandan Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) as well as the Ministry of Youth and ICTs (MYICT).

Isaac Oyimah with agency reports/GEE
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Pix: Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, Mr. Michael Hailu

Authority recalls Salads and Sandwiches after E. coli Outbreak

NaijaAgroNet:

The authorities of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) on Sunday, November 10, 2013 recalled Salads and Sandwich products shipped to Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington,  Illnesses in Arizona, California and Washington, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to investigations by Foo Poison journal sighted by NaijaAgroNet showed that Glass Onion Catering, a Richmond, California establishment, made this recall of approximately 181,620 pounds of ready-to-eat salads and sandwich wrap products with fully-cooked chicken and ham that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said.

The company also said that the products are being recalled in conjunction with other foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A full list of products being recalled we're also made available on FDA’s website.

Products regulated by FSIS bear the establishment number “P-34221” inside the USDA mark of inspection. FSIS products subject to recall include: [Labels, PDF]

12 oz. packages of  “delish pan pacific chop salad”
13.4 oz. packages of  “delish California style grilled chicken salad”
9.9 oz. packages of  “delish uncured applewood smoked ham & cheese wrap”
10.5 oz. packages of “delish grilled chicken caesar wrap”
10.9 oz. packages of  “delish southwestern chicken wrap”
11.5 oz. packages of  “delish greek brand low-calorie grilled chicken wrap”
9.9 oz. packages of  “delish white chicken club wrap”
11.2 oz. packages of  “delish asian style chicken wrap”
13.4 oz. packages of  “atherstone Fine Foods Southwestern Style White Chicken Wrap with Chimichurri Sauce”
10.5 oz. packages of  “atherstone Fine Foods Asian Style White Chicken Wrap with Mango Vinaigrette”
9.9 oz. packages of  “atherstone Fine Foods Grilled White Chicken Caesar Wrap with Caesar Dressing”

10.7 oz. packages of  “super fresh Foods California Grilled Chicken Salad, Low Fat Mendocino Mustard Dressing”
10.7 oz. packages of  “Lunch Spot Southwestern Style Chicken Wrap, Chile & Lime  Dressing”
9.2 oz. packages of  “super fresh Foods Pan Pacific Chopped Chicken Salad, Ginger Soy Dressing”
10.7 oz. plastic containers of “TRADER JOE’S Field Fresh Chopped Salad with Grilled Chicken.”
11 oz. plastic containers of “TRADER JOE’S MEXICALI SALAD with Chili Lime Chicken.”

The products were produced between Sept. 23 and Nov. 6, 2013 and shipped to distributions centers intended for retail sale in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Washington. When available, the retail distribution list(s) will be posted on the FSIS website at www.fsis.usda.gov/recalls.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Ensibuuko app wins agri-innovation challenge @ICT4Ag ‘13

NaijaAgroNet:

Ensibuuko agri-solution led the quadruplet of Messrs Richard Zulu, Gerald Otim, Daniel Opio and Ms Winnie Mbabazi emerged top winners at the just concluded Agri-Hackathon championship host as part of the Information and Communication Technology for Agriculture (ICT4Ag) international conference in Rwanda, the NaijaAgroNet reports.

NaijaAgroNet quoted The Observer as the Ugandan team of app developers outshined other contestants to go home with the 5,000 euros, about N1,056,467.00 prize money.

“The Ugandan farmers have won. We share a similar background with them and we know how they struggle to finance their activities,” declared Richard Zulu at Serena Hotel Kigali venue.

“For us the prize is a bonus after an extensive week of learning and sharing ideas with some of the best developers in the region,” Zulu said.

According to Zulu, the Ensibuuko app provides the ultimate solution to smallholder farmers. It comes with rich products which enhance the power of a mobile and web technologies to help small-holder rural farmers in Uganda acquire and pay loans to (non) microfinance institutions easily, quickly and in an accessible way. It uses an automated mobile money and SMS (Short Message Service).

“We are working in 35 districts in Uganda. Most smallholder farmers are unbanked and lack creditworthiness…that is why they need and have embraced this product,” noted Gerald Otim, the business development manager.

Isaac Oyimah with additional reports from The Observer/GEE.
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Pix: L-R: Rwanda minister for agriculture, Agnes Kalibata, Richard Zulu, Gerald Otim, Daniel Opio and Winnie Mbabazi

Cancer treatment: Experts discover how oxygen levels in tumours affect response

NaijaAgroNet:

Experts at the United Kingdom-based Manchester Cancer Research Centre (MCRC), a partnership project founded by The University of Manchester, have revealed the disclosure that the genetic make-up of a patient’s tumour could be used to personalise their treatment, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This, NaijaAgroNet gathered would help to decide whether cancer patients would benefit from receiving additional drugs as part of their radiotherapy programme, according to a recent study involving scientists from MCRC.

Experts said tumours with lower levels of oxygen, otherwise known as hypoxia often respond less well to radiation therapy.

“There are several agents that can be given to patients before radiotherapy to reduce hypoxia, but these are not given as standard. Being able to measure how well-oxygenated an individual’s tumour is would give doctors a valuable way of identifying which patients might benefit from treatment with hypoxia reducing agents before radiotherapy,” MCRC scientists explained.

They further said, hypoxia has previously been investigated by looking at the expression of certain genes, and Manchester researchers have come up with a genetic profile for tumours that should indicate the overall level of oxygenation.

NaijaAgroNet reports that researchers at MCRC carried out the study in patients diagnosed with cancer of the bladder and larynx, stressing these patients subsequently underwent either standard radiotherapy or radiotherapy with the addition of two agents which in combination are known to increase oxygenation: nicotinamide and carbogen.

The team tested patients’ tumour samples for 26 genes in order to classify them as more or less hypoxic, and then analysed whether this hypoxia score related to the results of treatment.

Leader of the team, Prof. Catharine West of The University’s Institute of Cancer Sciences, said “Our goal is to find ways of predicting how patients will respond to different treatments.

“Future cancer treatments will be personalised so that patients get the best therapy for their tumour,” she said, pointing out that personalising therapy will not only increase the number of people surviving cancer but also decrease side-effects, as patients would be spared from having treatments that are unlikely to work in their tumour.

Prof. West emphasised that they will now test how the hypoxia score works in the clinic in a trial starting in December in patients with head and neck cancer.

“I have studied ways of measuring hypoxia in tumours for many years so this is a very exciting finding that could help us optimise how we use radiotherapy to get the best outcome for patients,” she declared.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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Pix: Prof. Cath West and Pro. Davies

Agro: Community informatics provide cost effective delivery in rural areas

NaijaAgroNet:

Community Informatics (CI) provides a basis for approaching cost effective service delivery

in rural areas by focusing on the utilization of development of capacities and skills in local

communities as a means for enhancing and leveraging technical and external human

resources, reports Brenda Zulu.

These according NaijaAgroNet were examples drawn from Columbia, Kenya and Sudan presentations at the on-going ICT4Ag the digital springboard for inclusive agriculture on "Strengthening Grassroots Engagement  in  Agriculture Research and Development (ARD) Policy Processes"  in Kigali.

These NaijaAgroNet Learnt showed that by integrating technical infrastructures with community and social processes, it is possible to link rural areas  to national service delivery systems while developing local capacity and supporting the local social and economic development in rural areas.

Ligia Maria Mejia Diaz, a Researcher at Research Group of Basins, Tolima University in Columbia shared her experience on Participatory GIS (PGIS) a tool contributing to the empowerment and governance of communities for the benefit of sustainable development.

She said that PGIS presented their local population with an increased power and the inclusion of the marginalised through education and participation in geographic technologies. She said PGIS was a tools for marginalized communities whose opinion was usually ignored in the planning process.

Mejia Diaz says there was a need to for training as this was a very important part of PGIS . The project challenges included changing the original design of the project to a new design as the community surprised the researchers by their wealth of indigenous knowledge.

Brenda Zulu:

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