PAA Africa helps promote local agricultural

NaijaAgroNet:

The ongoing Purchase from Africans for Africa programme (PAA Africa) in five African countries is helping to promote local Agriculture in Africa report NaijaAgroNet.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the programme is structured on Brazil's achievements in fighting hunger and poverty and is implemented by five countries, namely Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger and Senegal coupled with some technical control and expertise from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

Florence Tartanac of FAO's rural infrastructure and agro-industries division said the PAA Africa programme contribute towards government efforts to combat rural poverty as it is shows in developing countries how the purchasing of produce from family farmers frequently among the most marginalized groups adds more value to the local market.

"Public purchasing from local producers adds value to local markets by integrating small scale family farmers and by channeling demand in this case from schools for their produce, contributing to food security and diversity."
 
While the government do the planning and policy aspects, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides technical assistance for them, as the Financial support for the work comes from the Brazilian government and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) while its experts work with  family farmers.

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UNECA-SA urges Government in southern Africa region to transform its Agriculture sector

NaijaAgroNet

The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa southern Africa office (UNECA-SA) has called on governments in the region to make a change in the agriculture sector to develop into food secure and enhance nutritional security NaijaAgroNet reports

This was discoursed at a two-day meeting being held under the watch of UNECA-SA from March 9-10 which prompted the UNECA-SA director, Said Adejumobi who said agricultural transformation could be a reality in southern Africa and they could feed themselves through agro-industry development.

He also said, to bring the agricultural transformation dream to be realistic, the state needs to render its support as it cannot be successful on its own.

“Africa’s agricultural transformation cannot take place without the state; not for the state to be a producer, but to actively support and if need be, subsidize the agriculture sector and Agro-industrial development cannot be effective without state
support.”

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Kaduna State farmers smile over N1bn funding facility

NaijaAgroNet 

The Kaduna State Government in collaboration with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) has commenced the payout of N1bn as loans to farmers in the state, gathered NaijaAgroNet.

The State government, disclosed it paid the sum of N500m as well as the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), to limit the difficulties being encountered by farmers in accessing loans from financial institutions within its territory. 

Governor RamallanYero-led administration affirmed to NaijaAgroNet that Kaduna State profitably trained 7,650 youths and women under its SURE-P Skill Acquisition and Empowerment Programme.

Also NaijaAgroNetgathered that the government provided Starter Packs and take-off grants worth millions of Naira for the grandaunts from the training. For instance, NaijaAgroNet leant that those trained in poultry were given 100 two-week old chicks, N30,000 for housing, N10, 000 for treatment, N5000 for transport, 8 bags of feeds and N10,000 take-off grants which is sufficient for starters in poultry to commence successfully.

Micah Mailafiya who benefitted from the above scheme said "Before I got into this whole thing, I was very worried about getting into the university. I thought that was the only way to make it, until I heard about the government's training programme for young, determined people and I was listed as one of the nine young people from my ward. We were trained, but in my case, I threw myself into it. Today, thanks to the government, I am one of the success stories."

 

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Fish importation policy review to benefit Nigeria’s youths

NaijaAgroNet

The on-going review of fish importation policy by the Federal Government would immensely benefit youths in the South Western part of the Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to NaijaAgroNet reports, Lagos and Ogun State are the key beneficiaries from the production capacity boost as Premium Aquaculture Limited (PAL) revealed its plans to generate over 500 jobs from two large fish farms already set up in Nigeria.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the two large fish farms located in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital and Epe suburb in Lagos State are expected to produce 4,500 metric tonnes of catfish per annum with focus on breeding two species of fishes.

The development came as a result of the decision by the PAL to invest in local fish farming in support the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina in his efforts through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to develop fish production in Nigeria and reduce the country's dependence on imported fish.

The Project Manager, Premium Aquaculture Limited, Sarvesh Pandey said the company will center on breeding only catfish and tilapia, explaining that the Epe fishpond is ready for production while Abeokuta farm will commence operations in April, 2015.

"A lot of research has been carried out on what area of fish to invest in and where to start the production. We will be committing an investment worth about $1 million on the production of tilapia fish to be produced in Abeokuta farm.

"Investment in catfish will be lesser than tilapia because catfish is like in-house (Nigerian owned fish), we are doing case culture on tilapia and case culture is more expensive. We are going to import from china and 1kg, will cost us around $4000 at the capacity of 5 metric tonnes per circle. If you do two circles in a year, you can get 10 metric tonnes in one cage."

 
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Agriculture boosts Nigeria Economy with N777 billion

NaijaAgroNet

Despite the austerity measures in Nigeria, the Federal Government has said the country’s economy has grown by N777bn, courtesy of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, made this known at the inauguration of the African Development Bank-assisted Agricultural Transformation Agenda Support Programme Phase I, which held at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Abuja.

The minister told NaijaAgroNet that the total agricultural GDP growth in a period of just three years within 2011-2013 surpass the total collective GDP for the eight-year period of 2000-2008.

“The Agricultural Transformation Agenda has added over N777bn in income to the economy. The agricultural GDP of Nigeria rose from N14tn in 2011 to N15.8tn in 2012 and N16.8tn in 2013. The total agricultural GDP in just three years (2011-2013) was N46.6tn, surpassing the total cumulative GDP for the eight-year period of 2000-2008 of N42tn,” he said.

According to Adesina, it was challenging for Africa to unlock all its capability to produce enough food to feed itself as well as feed the world even though the agriculture potential of Africa is vast.

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