Nutricima's Mega Cash promo debuts to reward consumers

NaijaAgroNet:

Beginning from Monday, January 13 through April 14, 2014, customers of Nutricima Limited, the makers of Coast, Nunu, Olympic milk and other nutritious food drinks, will be rewarded under the latest initiative, ‘Nutricima Mega Cash Promo’ reports NaijaAgroNet.

The promo, which was launched in Lagos, NaijaAgroNet confirms is aimed at rewarding new and existing consumers of Nutricima’s range of milk products.

Head of Marketing, Nutricima, Wande Oluwasegunfunmi, disclosed to NaijaAgroNet that consumers stand chances of winning millions of Naira and numerous gifts after purchasing any of Coast evaporated milk, Olympic evaporated milk and family pack of Nunu powdered milk, which has the promo label.

He explained to NaijaAgroNet that under the label, consumers could find a unique six (6) digit code and Serial Code number, which is to be sent to a dedicated phone number 08093377802. 

According to him, the sender then gets an auto response which informs the consumer about what he or she has won.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that some of the instant prizes to be won in the Mega Cash Promo include N50 airtime e-top-up for thousands of consumers, cash prizes of N500, N1,000, N5,000 and N10,000 each.

In addition, NaijaAgroNet recalls that apart from the instant prizes, consumers could also qualify for a monthly raffle draw where they have the opportunity to win between N50,000 and N1million.

Isaac Oyimah

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Explore investment in Palm Produce – Jonathan

NaijaAgroNet:

The President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has called on investors both at home and abroad to explore investments in the Palm produce in the country, NaijaAgroNet reports.

President Jonathan made this call recently while declaring open the first International Palm Produce Conference (IPPC) in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

He said investors could explore available opportunities in palm produce industry in Nigeria by taking advantage of investment friendly climate and various incentives that have been put in place by the present administration.

The 3-Day conference which was jointly organized by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with the National Palm Produce Association of Nigeria (NPPAN) has as its theme “Investment in oil palm and its derivatives, a panacea for economic growth and sustenance”

In his address, delivered by the Hon. Minister of State for  industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Samuel Ortom, President Jonathan pointed out that the aim of the landmark conference was to bring together global stakeholders to share ideas on new technological development and ways of improving the quality and availability of palm produce in order to maximize the growing investment opportunities in both domestic and international palm produce trade.

Also, a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet by the Director, Press at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr. Bolaji Kazeem, the Minister of State was quoted as saying that President expressed satisfaction with the timing of the conference because, it was holding at a time when the government has put in place all necessary policies to create enabling environment and framework for sustainable business and economic growth in agriculture commodities such as the oil palm where we have significant comparative advantage.

 “As one of our cardinal goals under the Transformation Agenda, we are unrelenting in our effort to explore and unlock the enormous potentials of our agriculture. We are doing this through the rapid transformation of key agriculture value chains in order to meet our objective of adding additional 20 million metric tonnes of food to the domestic supply by 2015 and stimulate the creation of over 3.5 million jobs along the agriculture value chains,” he said.

Further, President  Jonathan noted that his government has identified oil palm as one of the important commodities and key drivers to promote and has intensified  efforts to provide enabling environment to accomplish this task.

He pointed out that Nigeria is an oil palm producing nation and was a foremost producer and exporter especially in the fifties and sixties, when the nation dominated the palm produce industry and became world largest producer and marketer between 1961 and 1965 contributing an average world production share of 39 percent. He regretted that we allowed this position to slip out of our hands.

Reassuring investors, he said his administration has resolved to return to the former glorious level of performance which is part of our overall commitment towards embarking on the sustainable expansion of the area under cultivation, promoting the replacement of semi wild grove with improved planting material, upgrading the quality and number of palm oil mills and vegetable oil refineries in the country, and expanding our domestic and international market outreach.

He commended the government and the people of Akwa Ibom state, his excellencies the Governor of Akwa Ibom state and  the Governors of Palm oil producing states, government agencies, corporate bodies and international partners for various contributions towards the successful hosting of the conference.

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C.A.R: FAO warns on potential food security crisis

NaijaAgroNet:

The continuous security situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) is giving the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) some nightmares, hence it warned on the potential food security crisis in the country.

NaijaAgroNet reports that FAO says that despite security challenges in half of the prefectures, farmers in the Central African Republic are counting on the next agriculture season to restore their food production capacity to avoid risks of famine and malnutrition.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that since last year when they had to flee the violence, farming communities had to abandon their fields along the main roads to replant deep in the bush.

This disruption, experts say has led them to produce much less than previous years with a major impact on their food reserves that will last till February instead of July 2014.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that FAO of the United Nations is already working to provide farmers with seeds and tools for the next campaign however more funds are needed for the food security component of the 100-day response plan.

According to NaijaAgroNet, the initial assessments conducted in the past weeks indicated a deteriorating situation in terms of low food stocks, widespread disruption to village food markets and a lack of purchasing power overall among other issues.

Acting FAO Representative in the Central African Republic, Alexis Bonte, who recently visited Bossangoa revealed to NaijaAgroNet that the combination of food shortages and poor sanitary conditions in the camps and deep in the bush, as well as extreme poverty, risk triggering serious malnutrition.

The success of the next planting season Bonte noted is crucially hinging on the return of farming families to the fields, stressing that families who are unable to plant in March will have to wait one whole year before they could hope to harvest again.

“Failure to help these families will have dramatic consequences on the food security for a quarter of the Central African population. The low production perceived from the last harvest coupled with a prevailing situation of chronic country-wide malnutrition is setting the stage for a full scale food and nutrition security crisis should the next planting season fail, reports the Organization today,” FAO official said.

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Ghana has high cattle mortality rate

NaijaAgroNet:

The West African country of Ghana has been rated high in cattle mortality rate, reports NaijaAgroNet.

It was also reported that Ghana currently imports over 85 per cent of its beef South America and United Kingdom (UK) other than from local farmers, which amounts to some 95,000 tonnes of meat annually.

This was disclosed at the unveiling of the new concept to boost Ghana’s cattle rearing tactics through an initiative by a United States (US) and Ghanaian-based deal to launch a crowd-funding for cattle farmers in Ghana and other selected African countries.

Dubbed Farmable, the portal is expected to support farmers in Africa and other emerging markets through crowd-farming such as through provision of equipment for farmers with the tools and resources necessary to ensure they mitigate hunger and build a sustainable food supply.

The chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder, Farmable LLC, Damian Brennan says Farmable has developed a crowd-funding platform to channel funding from social investors around the world for capacity building activities of smallholder farmers.

By this act, he said, a cow for instance, through the Farmable website, online is classified as ‘CowBackers’ and could as matter of return on investment get the unique experience of being connected to their own cow on a real farm in Ghana.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE with agency reports

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Scholarship for 10-day course on ICT, agro-design

NaijaAgroNet:

Scholarship for a 10-day online course on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Design in agriculture and biodiversity issues is now open for interested candidates, reports NaijaAgroNet exclusively.

A researcher and practitioner in the application of Information and Communication Technologies for sustainable development, with focus on agriculture and natural resources management in developing and emerging regions, Prof.  Simone Sala confirmed this to NaijaAgroNet.

According to him, the course will be delivered in January 2015 and will be part of a Master to be held in Italy that will explore how design could contribute to a variety of fields.

He also advised interested and potential students to be mindful of the deadline which is January 10, 2014, just as some scholarships are still available for the course.

NaijaAgroNet also gathered that for instance, part of the course would be Biodiversity 101 which would afford students to learn about the new outputs for the transmission of know-how through the Massive Online Open Courses system applied to biodiversity of the XXI century.

“Together with the Mooc Design 101 team and the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Milan, students will build a system of contents for e-learning in light of Expo2015,” he disclosed, stressing that the teachings will range from videos to other interactive elements and social media that convey digital content to the mass community.

He also revealed to NaijaAgroNet that they are partnering with IdLab, a design company specialised in solving problems of innovation technology. Its variety of competences allows for imagining and realising complex projects where technologic and procedural solutions blend with innovative products and services, for example aesthetics, language, communication, usability, functionality, ambientation, re-use, information, sharing, innovation simplification, interaction and sustainability.

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Compensation: Why Odi indigenes protested

NaijaAgroNet:

While Nigerians were gearing up for the festive season, the people of Odi in Kolokuma-Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, penultimate Friday protested over the non-payment of N37.6 billion damages awarded to them by a Federal High Court, NaijaAgroNet reports.

NaijaAgroNet also notes that the Federal High Court, sitting in Port Harcourt, had in February 2013 ruled that the Federal Government (FG) should pay the amount as compensation for the November 1999 military invasion of the community by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

In addition, NaijaAgroNet quoted the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the demonstrators, who carried placards with various inscriptions, chanted songs in their dialect while blocking the major roads.

Some women among them wore sack clothes and rolled on ground on major roads in the state capital beside casket to show the grievance of the matter.

Equally, NaijaAgroNet reports that youths carried a mock coffin in remembrance of those who died in the invasion.

Stakeholders, including Niger Delta Human Rights Organisations and activists, Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), amongst others, participated in the protest.

A former Federal Permanent Secretary, Dr. (Mrs) Timiebi Koripamo-Agary told NAN that Odi had yet to recover from the aftermath of the invasion.

“We have won all our cases and the court had ordered that money should be paid to us. We are not happy with Jonathan because if the court had given judgment, he should have complied with it in the spirit of the rule of law.

“If they had not reported to Mr. President, we want to inform him through our protest’’, she said.

NAN further reports that community leaders ensured that the demonstration was peaceful and the busy East-West Road cleared after about 20 minutes of blockade.

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Pix: President Goodluck Jonathan

West Africa food security: Small-scale farmers must have access to markets

NaijaAgroNet:

A new study by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) made available to NaijaAgroNet shows that for West Africa to surmount its food security challenges, small-scale farmers must have greater access to markets.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the study, entitled Rebuilding West Africa’s Food Potential, presented a range of successful case studies since the region stepped up investments in agricultural development in the wake of the world food crisis in 2007-2008. 

The study revealed to NaijaAgroNet that countries could benefit significantly from policy support that targets broader agricultural development and greater coordination among producers, private industry and the public and financial sectors. 

FAO Senior Economist, Aziz Elbehri, who edited the publication told NaijaAgroNet that although some West African countries are doing better than others, the region has lagged behind other parts of Africa in terms of basic infrastructure, investments, research and development and agricultural processing.

The book reasons, Elbehri said that the region should direct greater efforts to develop its staple food crops, which in the past have been sidelined in favour of a few export commodities. 

NaijaAgroNet  noted that Maize and cassava, which are two of the main pillars of West Africa’s food security, could form the backbone for a thriving agro-industry given their multiple market applications, the publication suggests. 

“There is a huge production deficit in rice in the region, which currently imports an unsustainable 70 per cent of what it consumes,” FAO said, stressing that yields of sorghum and millet which are critically important for the food security of 100 million people in the Sahel, could double or triple with the help of improved seed varieties and fertilizer. Pointing out that providing farmers’ with the means to boost the yields of staple food crops is not enough.


“Farmers have little incentive to increase production if they can’t sell their crops because of cheaper and easily accessible imports. Policy and market incentives are needed to improve the competitiveness of locally grown crops and increase their share in the consumer market,” Elbehri said. 

NaijaAgroNet recalls that the study also underscored the importance of continued investment in export crops such as cotton, coffee and cocoa, which play a significant role in generating income and employment, and flags tropical fruit and vegetables and other emerging niche products like sesame and cashew nuts as another viable area for export growth. 


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UN agencies team-up on Swiss funded $2.7m project in 3 African countries

NaijaAgroNet:

Three United Nations (UN) agencies have teamed up on the $2.7 million project funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) targeting food losses in developing countries, with capabilities to boost harvesting, processing, transportation and storage as a result of inadequate infrastructure or lack of skills and technology, reports NaijaAgroNet.

These UN agencies, NaijaAgroNet gathered include Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) in three countries, namely Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

NaijaAgroNet notes that about one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year, which amounts to 1.3 billion tonnes or enough food to feed 2 billion people. 

The three-year project, NaijaAgroNet learnt will focus on reducing losses of grains and pulses such as maize, rice, beans and cow peas, staple foods that play a significant role in global food security and have a major impact on the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers. 

According to a 2011 report by the World Bank, FAO and the United Kingdom's Natural Resources Institute, grain losses in sub-Saharan Africa alone are worth potentially $4 billion a year and could meet the minimum annual food requirements of at least 48 million people. 

At a global level, the joint initiative will share knowledge on the most effective ways to reduce post-harvest losses and help countries introduce policies and regulations to cut down on wastage at national and regional level. 

The project will also identify critical points for losses in pulse and grain supply chains in three African pilot countries - Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda - and identify and test potential solutions to issues such as ineffective harvesting and handling, storage moisture levels, attacks by rats, birds and other pests, and insect damage. 

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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'7 ways to promote family farming and rural development'

NaijaAgroNet:

The goodwill ambassador for the International Year of Family Farming for the World Farmers Organisation (WFO), Mr Ger Sonnleitner, has outlined some Seven ways to promote family farming and rural development, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The two day conference on family farming in Brussels, according to NaijaAgroNet reports is on “Regional Dialogue on Family Farming: Working towards a strategic approach to promote food security and nutrition.”

The conference is organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the World Farmer’s Organisation (WFO), the World Rural Forum (WRF), and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA).

The event taking place in the framework of the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) NaijaAgroNet gathered is the final conference in a series of five held to increase knowledge on the state of family farming, the challenges and the actions and policies needed.

Additionally, NaijaAgroNet reports that the regional dialogue on family farming is a multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at identifying best practices in family farming as well as policies and practices in support of family farming around the world.

The year, NaijaAgroNet gathered will serve as a catalyst in the creation of a multi-stakeholder dialogue that will continue after the IYFF comes to an end in order to keep family farming high on the international agenda.

Mr Gerd Sonnleitner, representative of the World Farmers’ Organisation, spoke at the opening ceremony of the conference, and highlighted seven points that are deemed to be fundamental in order to ensure rural development around the world.

He listed good governance, enabling rural development through capacity development programmes for farmers, pointing out that rural development must be a central point on the international development agenda, just as there must be a specific support measures for small farmers aimed at making their farming activities more profitable.

Equally, he advocated for “economically and politically independent farmers’ organizations” stressing that modernization of farming, and a subsequent increase in production, and positive effects on food insecurity cannot be over-emphasised, just as a local and regional focus of rural development programs, and keeping in mind that one size does not fit all, are imperative.

“In this moment of crisis, family farming represents a flexible model, able to adapt to changing contexts and emerging challenges such as climate change, price volatility, and the marginalization of farmers in the value chain,” he said.

Insisting that if all work together and promote this model of farming, the issue of food security will no longer be a global problem.

Remmy Nweke

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Africa unites on Climate Change negotiations

NaijaAgroNet:

African Ministers of the Environment have agreed on a unified continental position at the Conference of Parties (COP) to the 19th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Warsaw, Poland, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Correspondent gathered that the jointly organized event with the NEPAD Agency, African Union Commission and the Environment ministries, saw to the consultative meeting also attended by some Heads of State and chaired by Dr Terezya Huvisa, Minister of State for Environment, Tanzania.

Dr. Huvisa said that with 96 per cent of African agriculture dependent on rainfall and 50 per cent of fisheries related jobs estimated to be lost by 2050, climate change poses unimaginable consequences to livelihoods in Africa.

Thus, the ministers were forthright in calling for a new climate regime that is legally binding and which addresses the continent’s needs after the current regime, which is at end of the Kyoto protocol in 2015.

At the, NaijaAgroNet reports that Warsaw talks the continent will engage the global community on negotiations relating to climate change adaptation measures which Africa, led by the Conference of African Heads of States on Climate Change (CAHOSCC) has consistently flagged as a priority for the continent.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that Africa is responsible for less than three per cent of total global emissions yet bears the brunt of climate change, hence calling for a post Kyoto climate change agreement that is binding, rules-based; predictable, robust, clear, enforceable and scientifically-sound.

The African Ministers also pointed out that historical responsibility in greenhouse gas emissions as well as loss and damage should be addressed in the new agreement. The African group will negotiate on issues such as a programme of work on adaptation, technology transfer and development, capacity development and climate change finance.

Director of Programme Implementation and Coordination at the NEPAD Agency, Mrs Estherine Fotabong expressed confidence in the work of the ministerial body particularly as the continent speaks with one voice and with a unified position. She pledged that NEPAD is always available to assist the AMCEN technically towards presenting a common position for the continent.

“We shall push for all developed countries to commit to new and additional public finance over the period 2013-15, in a way that is transparent and predictable” said Mr Emmanuel Dlamini from the Kingdom of Swaziland who is the chair of the African Group of Negotiators.

The ministerial group indicated that the continent will negotiate for the implementation of commitments made under previous COPs and ensure that mechanisms established from previous decisions such as finance, technology transfer are pursued. The group singled out commitment of new and additional finance that must clearly demonstrate year-on-year increases for climate change initiatives on the continent.

While recognizing the need for Africa to increase domestic resources allocated to Environment and Climate adaptation, they strongly reiterated the obligation of developed countries to allocate public resources to support adaptation actions in developing countries. The idea of an African Climate Change Fund was mooted and supported.

Isaac Oyimah with agency report/GEE
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