'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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AU, UNICEF, WHO partner on Africa Food Nutrition Security Day’13

NaijaAgroNet:

The 4th ADFNS ended in the city of Niamey, capital of Niger under the joint partnership of the African Union Commission (AUC), NEPAD Agency Government of Niger and partners such as United Nations International Children Education Function (UNICEF) and World Health Organisation (WHO) amongst others.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the event held as part of the 2013 commemoration on October 30, under the theme “Toward an African Renaissance: Achieving the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition”.

This, organizers said was in line with the 50th anniversary celebration of the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Year of Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance.

ADFNS, celebrated annually on the 30 of October, aims to create a platform in which concerned stakeholders can discuss solutions and make recommendations on food security issues in Africa.

“It is also a platform to strengthen the momentum towards achieving the Millennium Develop­ment Goals (MDGs) and to assess what happens after the 2015 deadline,” officials confided in NaijaAgroNet.

AUC Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, H.E Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, told NaijaAgroNet that the African Union Commission accords special importance to this year’s ADFNS,  as a prelude to 2014 the AU declared Year of Agriculture and Food and Nutrition  Security and also marking the 10th anniversary of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

“Day remains an opportunity for all AU Member States, Governments, stakeholders and partners to heighten our awareness of and reinforce our commitment to accelerating our collective efforts towards a food and nutrition secure, and poverty Africa,” she said.

Mrs. Tumusiime said increasing agricultural production, productivity food and nutrition security, features highly on Africa Agenda 2063, which will be considered for adoption by AU Heads of State and Government at their Summit in January, 2014.

For the Chief Executive Officer, NEPAD Agency, Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, the proven solutions for food and nutrition security challenges already exist and needed to be replicated.

“The era of pilots projects is long gone and it is now time to take actions. The private sector is a valuable partner in the fight against malnutrition whereas civil society remains our most important voice of conscience” he declared.

NaijaAgroNet notes that AUC delegation was led by H.E. Mrs. Fatima Haram Acyl, Commissioner for Trade and Industry, and was joined by high-level leaders from global, regional and national agriculture associations, African and other governments, civil society and farmer’s organizations, the private sector, scientific and research institutions, and development partners.

Remmy Nweke
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Rwandan farmers to use mobile phones to access genuine fertilizers

NaijaAgroNet:

The International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) is providing access to Rwandan farmers to enable them use the mobile phones to verify product genuinely, especially on fertilizers.

NaijaAgroNet learnt that already, this kind of service access is operational in Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa and Uganda to name a few, but various technology vendors.

According to Bruce Kisitu at the on-going Information and Communications Technology Summit for Agriculture held in Kigali, this new technology uses mobile phones to confirm whether the product is real or fake, reports AllAfrica.com.

"Agricultural products must have a pack number that the farmer types into their phone and sends to local short code that automatically returns a verification of the authenticity of the product being purchased. All agro products, like seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and pesticides are supposed to be marked with a scratch panel that reveals the product's pack number," Kisitu said.

NaijaAgroNet the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) in partnership with Crop Life Africa developed the technology.

Isaac Onyema/GEE

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Push to enhance management, conservation in tuna fisheries

NaijaAgroNet:

The Global Environment Facility (GEF)-funded and Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) project, formed part of global effort to improve fisheries management in the common oceans

The chief executive officer, CEO of GEF, Naoko Ishii told NaijaAgroNet that they approved a project coordinated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to improve the health and sustainability of tuna fisheries worldwide by reducing illegal catch and supporting related marine ecosystems and species.

The GEF, an international institution uniting 183 countries to address global environmental issues and support sustainable development, approved funding for the implementation phase of the multi-partner project coordinated by FAO which aims to improve management of tuna fisheries on the high seas and conserve biodiversity of related marine ecosystems and species. It will reduce illegal catches of the far-ranging, highly-prized and globally consumed fish.

Ishii pointed out that the latest decision sets the stage for action on a global scale that will address both an economic and environmental threat to one of the world's most important commercial fish species.

"I am pleased that we are able to bring together both public and private partners in this project, which give us a fighting chance to work on a scale sufficient to reverse negative trends threatening the global tuna fishery and the ocean environment that sustains it," Ishii said.

Till date, according to NaijaAgroNet investigations, an estimated $30 million in GEF grants has leveraged over $150 million of co-financing in support of the project, which forms part of a broader multi-stakeholder initiative working to ensure that these precious resources are harvested in a sustainable way.

Nenye Dom/GEE 

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GE-USADF Off-Grid Energy Challenge: Winners to emerge Nov. 21

NaijaAgroNet:

Following the recent closure of entries for the 2013 Off-Grid Energy Challenge by the General Electronics (GE) and the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), winners are set to emerge on November 21 in a ceremony in Lagos, NaijaAgroNet reports.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that the challenge was recently launched in Kenya and Nigeria thereby commencing the judging process in anticipation of the announcement of this year’s winners from both countries.

Investigations by NaijaAgroNet reveals that over the next three years, some 20 individuals and indigenous African companies who come up with innovative solutions that address the energy challenges of African communities and businesses stand a chance of winning up to USD 100,000 in grants to support their initiatives.

According to NaijaAgroNet searches, the judges are looking out for off-grid energy solutions that have created innovative approaches to metering, payment, collections, or transmission.

“They will also look out for entries that deliver sustainable energy to underserved marginal populations without degrading the environment,” a source told NaijaAgroNet.

The President and CEO, GE Africa, Jay Ireland expressed excitements that the Off-Grid Energy challenge is generating increased awareness about the plight of communities that are either underserved by the national grid or are not connected at all.

“We have no doubt that great solutions will emerge from this initiative, which will ultimately provide some insight to how to tackle some of the off-grid energy challenges in Africa” he said.

USADF President and CEO, Shari Berenbach said the initiative will help leverage more marginalized and underserved communities into positions where they could engage in and benefit from inclusive economic growth.

She noted that over the last 30 years, the USADF has championed initiatives that have contributed in catalyzing Africans out of poverty, stressing, “We are proud to be in partnership with GE on this initiative, which clearly resonates with everything that USADF stands for.”

NaijaAgroNet equally recollects that the Off-Grid Energy challenge is the initiative of global infrastructure giants, General Electric (GE) and the United States Africa Development Agency (USADF), which rides on the back of the Power Africa initiative announced by President Barack Obama during his recent visit to Africa.

The Power Africa initiative seeks to drive growth in Africa by increasing access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable power and by helping to ensure responsible, transparent and effective management of energy resources on the continent.

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Pix: Lazarus Angbazo, President/CEO General Electric, Nigeria

Nigeria poultry show exposes new techniques

NaijaAgroNet:

Stakeholders in the poultry sector converged in Abeokuta, Ogun State for this year’s international Poultry Show to exhibit their product, services and imbibe new techniques into the global trends and practices.

 The National Chairman, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Dr Ayoola Oduntan informed NaijaAgroNet  that  the event serves as a business forum where participants learn new techniques, technology and recent advances in animal health and nutrition which will be beneficial to their farms.

 “Nigerian poultry farmers will use the numerous opportunities in this show to build networks and to key into the best global trends and practices that will redefine poultry farming in the country,” Oduntan said. 

Speaking on the occasion as the chairman, the former Minister for State Agriculture, Alhaji Adamu Waziri Maina, said that if the current campaign of “an egg a day” by the Poultry Association of Nigeria is achieved, 75 per cent consumption of poultry products will double in five years. 

A guest speaker, Mr Kola Masha, who spoke on the need to increase the consumption of poultry products, said the theme “Doubling Consumption of Locally Produced Poultry Products in Five Years” is apt as Nigeria is seriously lagging behind in terms of the consumption of poultry products. 

“The consumption of poultry products in Nigeria is only five per cent compared to South Africa’s 65 per cent and the Caribbean’s 85 per cent. Nigerians need to consume more poultry, which promotes the health of the nation,” Masha said.

AN/GEE

 NaijaAgroNet

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