With hunger, sustainable development is not feasible - FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has affirmed that sustainable development is unfeasible if hunger and malnutrition are not eradicated.

José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director General said there cannot be anything called sustainable development when nearly one of every seven men, women and children are victims of undernourishment.

FAO in a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet revealed that millions of people are still hungry despite the significant progress in development and food production as there are no means to purchase the food needed for a healthy and productive life.

FAO made the pronouncement in preparation for the Rio+20 summit coming up this month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that a sustainable future is being put to a limit as a result of the challenges of food security.

"At the Rio summit we have the golden opportunity to explore the convergence between the agendas of food security and sustainability to ensure that happens," FAO boss said forecasting the summit as an opportunity to discuss food security issues.

Hunger reduction and sustainable development, FAO revealed are irrevocably connected, hence a better governance of the agricultural and food systems are key to achieving both targets.

Further, NaijaAgroNet gathered that three quarters of the world's poor and hungry live in rural areas and most of them depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. 

The UN agency also made known that about forty per cent of the world's degraded lands are in areas with high poverty rates, making hunger to put in motion a vicious cycle of reduced productivity.

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World Bank commends Lagos on CADP implementation

The Lagos State implementation of Commercial Agriculture Development Projects (CADP) has received commendations from the World Bank country Director, Ms Francois Marie Nelle.

Other programmes, she said, were laudable include road rehabilitation projects and the energy interventions in support of agro-processing technology.

NaijaAgroNet learnt that the World Bank country director also assured the state of World Bank’s future partnership in projects implementation.

Mr. Bukar Tijani, Minister of State for Agriculture confirmed that the Lagos State agricultural policy is in line with the transformation agenda of the federal government towards food security.

While applauding Lagos State for investing in project interventions, Mr. Tijani affirmed that the federal government would do more in terms of agricultural commercialization to make food sufficient and also improve agricultural value chains.

Responding, the Lagos State Commissioner for Agriculture and Co-operatives, Prince Gbolahan Lawal said the state's collaboration with the Federal Government and World Bank in the Commercial Agricultural Development Projects (CADP) is on a fruitful path as it has improved business environment for agriculture by assisting participating small and medium scale commercial farmers.

Source: LagosIndicator

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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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Outlook calls on government to boost job creation for African youths

The May edition of the African Economic Outlook has called on African governments to boost jobs creation for youths on the continent.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the population of African youth is expected to double by 2045 giving the continent one billion workforce and making it the largest globally.

To this, the Outlook urged the government to provide employment opportunities and also ensure a political process that would allow the youths to express their views towards policy changes in order to prevent instability on the continent.

"This is an opportune time to reset the policy agenda of African governments towards an inclusive, employment-creating and sustainable growth strategy, aimed particularly at addressing the special needs of the young," part of the Outlook made available to NaijaAgroNet reads.

The current trend of education on the continent, NaijaAgroNet further gathered will result to 59 per cent of 20-24 years old with secondary education by 2030 as against the present 42 per cent.

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N1.59trn on wheat imports, unacceptable – Jonathan

Nigeria women processing cassava

Nigeria President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has expressed federal government’s unacceptability over the importation of wheat, rice, sugar and fish only which amounts to over $10 billion, about N1.59 trillion.

He also said the federal government is facilitating the importation and installation of 100 new large scale integrated rice mills in Nigeria to enable the nation with a capacity to mill all locally consumed rice.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the federal government would not only sustain farming in the nation as the largest producer of cassava in the world but also to ensure that Nigeria is the largest processor of high value cassava products globally.

To achieve this, President Jonathan said tariff and levy on the importation of wheat has been increased and proceeds from the levy will be used to support corporate bakers and master bakers across the country to use high quality cassava flour for baking.

The funds generated from the wheat levy, NaijaAgroNet learnt would be set aside to also support the promotion of high quality cassava flour and composite cassava bread in form of technical training, equipment for corporate baker as well as enzymes needed for production.

“Nigeria will export this year 1 million metric tonnes of dried cassava chips to China,” this he said would earn the nation $136 million, about N21.7 billion in foreign exchange.

The federal government is also reviving cocoa’s lost glory with massive distribution of about 3.6 million free pods of high-yielding cocoa varieties for farmers. Free cotton seeds will also be distributed to cotton farmers in the north.

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Jonathan bans foreign foods at govt functions

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has banned continental dishes at all government official functions in order to promote local foods.

He said, the move by the federal government to ban foreign foods at state functions is to encourage the consumption of what is produced locally.

“We must grow local, buy local and eat local,” he declared.

The prescribed local foods by the president, NaijaAgroNet learnt includes local rice and cassava bread, to make use of the large population to create market for locally produced foods.

In his democracy day presidential address, Jonathan noted that the state house has been feeding on cassava bread and local rice, hence keeping his promise.

“Our agricultural transformation agenda is directed at promoting local production,” he said.

President Jonathan also asserted that agriculture accounts for about 40 per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while creating job opportunities for over 70 per cent of the total population.

He expressed the federal government’s move in the transforming the agriculture sector as Nigeria has a huge comparative advantage and increase in productivity, saying it would help reduce the rate of rural poverty as well as reviving the rural economy.

“Our goal is to add 20 million metric tonnes of food to our domestic food supply by 2015 and create 3.5 million jobs,” he said, stressing, “We are aggressively pursuing an agricultural transformation agenda.”

President Jonathan further affirmed that agriculture is no longer a development programme, hence the need to treat it as a business, one that could generate wealth and create jobs for millions of our youths.

Giving the reason behind the federal government stopping the distribution of fertilizers, the president said only 11 per cent of farmers benefit from the fertilizers that was earlier distributed. “The old system encouraged rent seekers to collude and deprive farmers of access to fertilizers, while some of the fertilizers ended up with political farmers and in neighbouring countries,” he said.

This, NaijaAgroNet learnt lead to the total deregulation of the procurement and commercialization of fertilizers and seeds by the federal government to the private sector in order to put an end to corruption culture in fertilizer procurement exercise.

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