Oil policy will conserve our Environment-EAC

NaijaAgroNet:

The East African Community (EAC) ought to originate oil and gas sector policies, which will promote sustainable development of the natural resources, environmental issues, and ensure prudent oil cash management systems NaijaAgroNet.
 

It was gathered by NaijaAgroNet  that Rwanda's Minister for Natural Resources, Vincent Biruta, said this while speaking at the recently concluded seventh petroleum sector East African conference in Kigali.

"Oil and gas industry activities should be carried out in a sustainable manner, with clear mitigation measures in place to safeguard the environment and bio-diversity and this will also play a big role in combating climate change as impending oil production in region will ease pressure on forests since most people rely on wood fuel... So, oil and gas could be the best alternative, which will help reduce deforestation across the region," Biruta said.

Due to the fact that the East African region has confirmed massive oil and gas finds and this exposes the bio-diversity to risks if appropriate care is not taken to defend the fauna and flora in the area.
To be specific, Uganda has over 6.5 billion barrels of commercial oil resources in the Albertine Graben, which also hosts a national park.

Chidozie Anibueze/GEE
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PAA Africa helps promote local agricultural

NaijaAgroNet:

The ongoing Purchase from Africans for Africa programme (PAA Africa) in five African countries is helping to promote local Agriculture in Africa report NaijaAgroNet.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the programme is structured on Brazil's achievements in fighting hunger and poverty and is implemented by five countries, namely Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal coupled with some technical control and expertise from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

Florence Tartanac of FAO's rural infrastructure and agro-industries division said the PAA Africa programme contribute towards government efforts to combat rural poverty as it is shows in developing countries how the purchasing of produce from family farmers frequently among the most marginalized groups adds more value to the local market.

"Public purchasing from local producers adds value to local markets by integrating small scale family farmers and by channeling demand in this case from schools for their produce, contributing to food security and diversity."
 
While the government do the planning and policy aspects, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides technical assistance for them, as the Financial support for the work comes from the Brazilian government and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) while its experts work with  family farmers.

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UNECA-SA urges Government in southern Africa region to transform its Agriculture sector

NaijaAgroNet

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa southern Africa office (UNECA-SA) has called on governments in the region to make a change in the agriculture sector to develop into food secure and enhance nutritional security NaijaAgroNet reports

This was discoursed at a two-day meeting being held under the watch of UNECA-SA from March 9-10 which prompted the UNECA-SA director, Said Adejumobi who said agricultural transformation could be a reality in southern Africa and they could feed themselves through agro-industry development.

He also said, to bring the agricultural transformation dream to be realistic, the state needs to render its support as it cannot be successful on its own.

“Africa’s agricultural transformation cannot take place without the state; not for the state to be a producer, but to actively support and if need be, subsidize the agriculture sector and Agro-industrial development cannot be effective without state
support.”

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Kaduna State farmers smile over N1bn funding facility

NaijaAgroNet 

The Kaduna State Government in collaboration with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) has commenced the payout of N1bn as loans to farmers in the state, gathered NaijaAgroNet.

The State government, disclosed it paid the sum of N500m as well as the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), to limit the difficulties being encountered by farmers in accessing loans from financial institutions within its territory. 

Governor RamallanYero-led administration affirmed to NaijaAgroNet that Kaduna State profitably trained 7,650 youths and women under its SURE-P Skill Acquisition and Empowerment Programme.

Also NaijaAgroNetgathered that the government provided Starter Packs and take-off grants worth millions of Naira for the grandaunts from the training. For instance, NaijaAgroNet leant that those trained in poultry were given 100 two-week old chicks, N30,000 for housing, N10, 000 for treatment, N5000 for transport, 8 bags of feeds and N10,000 take-off grants which is sufficient for starters in poultry to commence successfully.

Micah Mailafiya who benefitted from the above scheme said "Before I got into this whole thing, I was very worried about getting into the university. I thought that was the only way to make it, until I heard about the government's training programme for young, determined people and I was listed as one of the nine young people from my ward. We were trained, but in my case, I threw myself into it. Today, thanks to the government, I am one of the success stories."

 

Chidozie Anibueze/GEE

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