AGCO to establish multi-million tractor factory in Nigeria

   A multi-million Naira assembly plant is being targeted by North American company, AGCO which specializes in manufacturing of agricultural equipments, in anticipation of Nigeria’s dream to grow the sector with 300,000 within the next three years.

AGCO offers a full product line including tractors, combines, hay tools, sprayers, forage equipment, groundscare and implements through more than 8,500 independent dealers and distributors around the world.

DigitalSENSE News investigation reveals that AGCO is likely to provide this number of tractors through its worldwide retail financing scheme known as Agricredit joint venture.

Experts at Investopedia says joint venture is the cooperation of two or more individuals or businesses in which each agrees to share profit, loss and control in a specific enterprise. Describing it as a good way for companies to partner without having to merge and are typically taxed as a partnership.

Making this disclosure recently, the Federal Minister in-charge of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Ayo Adesina, noted that AGCO is the largest manufacturer of Marcy Ferguson tractors globally.

He also stressed that FG has advanced strategies for the establishment of assembly plants in the country following a discussion with the manufacturer in April.

“Nigeria needs at least 300,000 tractors, to enable our youth to get into agriculture as a business,” he declared.

Equally speaking in Abuja, Dr. Adesina reiterated the resolve of the Federal Government, pointing out that already the Nigerian government has concluded farmers’ census, while introducing an agric-wallet and employment of 36 agriculture directors, who have been deployed nationwide at the state capitals.

AGCO offers a full product line including tractors, combines, hay tools, sprayers, forage equipment, groundscare and implements through more than 8,500 independent dealers and distributors around the world. AGCO provides retail financing worldwide through its Agricredit joint venture.

DigitalSENSE News gathered that historically, AGCO Corporation has its roots in the North American farm equipment industry with its heritage reaching as far back as the mid 1800’s through many of its brands. However, its direct lineage is from the Allis-Chalmers brand name.

Also, in 1990 KHD sold its Deutz Allis division to AGCO and ever since, the company has become a world-wide farm machinery company through market growth and strategic acquisitions.

Today, AGCO prides itself with sales of approximately USD$7 billion, about N 1,104,949,957,275.39 trillion, and AGCO is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AG.

 

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Nigeria, five others benefit from Gates’ largesse

    Farmers from six African countries, including Nigeria, are to benefit from the largesse of the second phase of the Commercial Products (COMPRO-II) project being funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to NaijaAgroNet investigations, Gates Foundation has before now approved the project which amounts to $7 million, about N1.09 billion, with Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania as the six countries to benefit from the second phase of the project.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet also revealed that the project is tagged ‘Institutionalization of quality assurance mechanism and dissemination of top quality commercial products to increase crop yields and improve food security of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.’

IITA Director General, Nteranya Sanginga noted that the main objectives of the project are to institutionalize quality assurance mechanisms and facilitate the rapid dissemination of top quality commercial products to increase yields and also improve security of smallholder farmers.

Further, he said the project is to increase awareness among over two million smallholder farmers on effective and profitable commercial products by 2016 through public-private partnership.

Prem Warrior, a senior Programme Officer at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said that the expected outcome of the project is the institutionalization of screening and approval of commercial products.

The phase II of the project proposes to transit technologies used for the phase 1 of the project into Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda; institutionalize regulatory and quality control processes;    disseminate effective products through public-private partnerships; develop communication tools, and    strengthen human capacity.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that at the end of the project, more farmers are expected to confidently use the quality assurance products because of their safety, efficacy, and quality will be ensured through institutionalized regulatory and quality assurance mechanisms.

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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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