FAO raises alarm over influenza virus in China

NaijaAgroNet:

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has once again raised an alarm over the increasing human cases of influenze A (H7N9) in Southern and Eastern China, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to FAO official statement made available to NaijaAgroNet and endorsed by FAO Chief Veterinary Officer, Juan Lubroth, human infections with the influenza A (H7N9) virus are on the rise again in China and the upcoming Chinese New Year festivities provide opportunity for further spread and human exposure.

“Millions of people and poultry are expected to be on the move and many households will slaughter poultry at home to celebrate the New Year. FAO called upon neighboring countries to remain vigilant in the face of A (H7N9) and other avian influenza viruses, such as highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1,” part of the statement read.

Also, FAO said that the number of human infections with H7N9 has considerably increased since late December in East and Southeast China, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Equally, they said that the increase in cases was expected, as influenza viruses traditionally show increased activity during the winter months. So far, no other country has reported influenza A (H7N9) in humans, animals or in the market place.

“There is strong evidence that people become infected following close contact with infected live poultry, mostly in live bird markets or when slaughtering birds at home. According to WHO, no sustained human-to-human transmission has occurred so far. Genetic analysis by FAO reference centers has revealed that the virus has not changed significantly since its emergence last year,” FAO officials said.

Lubroth further said that Chinese authorities are enforcing important measures to reduce the risk of human exposure to the A (H7N9) virus.

"This includes temporary closures of live bird markets, regular market rest days, improved hygiene in markets, heightened and ongoing surveillance in poultry and live bird market environment, and control of poultry movements," Lubroth advised.

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Pix: FAO DG, Da Silvia

South Sudan: $61m required to protect, rebuild food security

NaijaAgroNet:

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that the continuous political crisis in South Sudan would require the sum of $61 million, about N9.7 trillion, to protect, rebuild food security and livelihood in the new country, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The recent violence in South Sudan, NaijaAgroNet reports is threatening to increase hunger and human suffering considerably, unraveling modest gains made in food security in the past two years, according to Sue Lautze, FAO Representative in South Sudan, the agency's newest member country.

Also, NaijaAgroNet gathered that under the United Nations' Crisis Response Plan, FAO and its partners in the Food Security and Livelihoods Cluster are seeking $61 million for crucial food assistance and livelihoods activities.

FAO's efforts are focused on getting seeds, livestock vaccines, fishing gear and other agricultural inputs, technologies and services to vulnerable rural and urban families whose food production and income activities are being disrupted by conflict and the displacement of people.

This, NaijaAgroNet reports would afford FAO to mitigate the environmental impact of displacement.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that the humanitarian situation in South Sudan deteriorated rapidly since fighting broke out in mid-December, causing not only the loss of life and displacement, but also disrupting agricultural development and humanitarian activities crucial to the survival and future livelihoods of millions.

“The impacts on diversified livelihoods in four of South Sudan's ten states are generating an alarming risk of food insecurity and malnutrition,” Lautze noted.

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Berlin Green Week’14: WFO says resilience, the keyword

NaijaAgroNet

The Executive Director, World Food Organisation (WFO-OMA) Mr. Marco Marzano, has said that resilience is the keyword the Berlin Green Week 2014 gets underway within the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA), NaijaAgroNet reports.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the International Green Week in Berlin, which began at the weekend, would last till January 26, 2014 is reputed as the world's biggest fair for food, agriculture and horticulture.

Marzano also disclosed that the commencement of Global Forum for Food and Agriculture that it represents a unique opportunity for different stakeholders of the agricultural sector, including government representatives, United Nations (UN) agencies, governmental development agencies,  to meet and discuss about the latest challenges affecting the sector.

“This year title, Empowering Agriculture: Fostering Resilience – Securing Food and Nutrition, already contains the seed of a possible solution for overcoming some of the threats,” Marzano said, stressing that resilience is the keyword, adaptation the way out.

“We all work for having food and nutrition security as the final result” the Executive Director said.

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Tsetse fly: Senegal advances battle, improves livestock sector

NaijaAgroNet:

The West African country of Senegal may have advanced battle over Tsetse fly in the country, just as a foundation plan has been put in place to improve livestock sector, NaijaAgroNet reports.

NaijaAgroNet gathers that a campaign against the tsetse fly, a pest that transmits a disease that devastates livestock in the Niayes area near the capital Dakar has radically reduced the fly population and is paving the way for complete eradication. 

Project manager and Head, Animal Health Section in the Senegalese Ministry of Livestock, Baba Sall, confirmed this development to NaijaAgroNet, saying that since the project started, there is already less disease.

“It has not only reduced the tsetse but also ticks, which cause lots of other diseases in the area. We have noticed over all better health of the herds," he said

NaijaAgroNet pointed out that a multi-year programme of the Government of Senegal, with financial help from the United States and technical support from the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), France, is slowly eradicating the tsetse fly using a method called the Sterile Insect Technique.

The programme, he said, is supported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) through its joint division with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

The Niayes area has a coastal micro-climate suitable for exotic breeds of cattle, the kind that produces more milk and meat than domestic stock.

Unfortunately, the area is also home to the tsetse fly, which transmits trypanosomosis. Often lethal, the disease reduces fertility, weight gain, meat and milk production and makes the cattle too weak to be used for ploughing or transport.

A government study estimates that when the tsetse fly is completely eradicated in the Niayes farmers will earn €1.2 million ($1.6 million) more per year because they will spend less on treating animals and earning more profit from selling milk and meat.

NaijaAgroNet further gathered that the government has an ambitious plan to introduce exotic livestock breeds and create a modern meat and dairy sector in the area, which is near the capital Dakar.

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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.

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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