South Africa: Agric leads in job creation

NaijaAgroNet

The data made public from South Africa indicated that the agricultural sector was the leading job creator in the first quarter of 2015, adding 150, 000 jobs, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Statistics South Africa in 2015 released the data showing an estimated 891 000 people employed in the sector. This NaijaAgroNet gathered, accounts for about 6% of South Africa’s total employment figures which is a significant achievement, considering the challenges within the sector, ranging from land policy to climatic conditions.

NaijaAgroNet learnt that South Africa leads the continent in the advancement of agricultural technology, particularly in crop production. This is being driven by climate change and growing variability that have increased the need for research and development.

Agricultural meetings are significantly about development and production, with an emphasis on technological advancement, to optimize productivity to meet yawning food demand and to improve the resilience of agriculture. Many research institutions equally are working with organized agriculture with focus on the sector’s potential to create jobs, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The National Development Plan (NDP) reports that agriculture has the potential to create close to one million new jobs by 2030, a significant contribution to the overall employment target.

To achieve this, NaijaAgroNet was informed, the NDP primarily focuses on improving production to achieve sustainability in smallholder and commercial farming, but the onus for labour training and education is placed mostly on farmers.

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Agriculture key to end poverty says Uma Ukpai

NaijaAgroNet

The Nigerian youths have been called upon to develop keen interest in agriculture as a way of ending unemployment and as such create wealth and food sufficiency in the nation, the founder, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN), Evangelist Uma Ukpai has said.

NaijaAgroNet reports that Uma Ukpai stated this while addressing news men in Uyo, AkwaIbom, recently. He said that Nigeria, in all ramifications, should be one of the richest countries of the world given its abundant natural and human resources, regretting, however, that it could not even feed its citizens due to misplaced priorities.

“Our youths should promote agriculture. They should promote vocational skills acquisition since it has become very difficult to engage the numerous graduates looking for white collar jobs,” he said.

He gave more hints that agriculture with its potential is capable of not only transforming the national economy but also tremendously impacting on the personal lives of the farmers, particularly the youth

Consequently, he tasked Nigeria youths to stop complaining about poverty and unemployment or blaming government for every woe and challenge but rather think of creating wealth through farming, adding, “a society where everybody runs after government to provide everything does not prosper.

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First Bank, NCF partner to protect environment

 NaijaAgroNet

First Bank Nigeria and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) have come together tocreate awareness on the need to preserve wildlife and biodiversity among school children in Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.

To give added impetus topromoting environmental sustainability, NaijaAgroNet learnt, the bank flagged off the conservation initiative recently with the planting of 120 trees at the Lagos State Civil Service Model College, Igbogbo, Ikorodu, where it also formally set up a conservation club in the school.

The Head, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability in First Bank, Mr. Ismail Omamegbe said it was part of the bank's long-term approach to sustainability and minimizing direct and indirect impacts on the environment. The conservation initiative, NaijaAgroNet gathered, lays emphasis on tree planting and students' conservation clubs which will serve as vehicles to drive environmental protection and conservation.

"This has made us focused on three priority areas which are minimize carbon footprint, carbon offsetting, conservation and preservation of wildlife and biodiversity," he said.
Mr. Omamegbe stated that First Bank's partnership with the NCF is strategic because NCF's leadership role in promoting environmental conservation and sustainable development in Nigeria tallies with the bank's desire to see the environment sustained because it is a socially responsible entity, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Dr. Joseph Onoja, NCF's Director, Technical Programmes, had earlier stated that NCF  “is pleased that Lagos State Civil Service Model College, Igbogbo, Ikorodu will be the pacesetter for the conservation clubs. Today we are going to plant 120 trees in commemoration of First Bank's 120 years in existence”.

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AFAN chieftain appeals to FG for easy access to credit facilities

NaijaAgroNet

Nigerian farmers have appealed to the Federal Government to make access to credit facilities for their members easy by relaxing stringent rules, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Making this appeal in a chat with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and monitored by NaijaAgroNet, the former Delta Chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr Jerry Ossai, urged government at all levels to end all rules that serve as obstacles to enable farmers access credit facilities to boost food production.

Ossai noted that although funds were available to provide lending facilities to farmers in Nigeria, but the conditions were too stringent for rural farmers to benefit, adding that access to farm inputs like high yielding seedlings, fertilizers, herbicides among others has made investment in agriculture especially farming very difficult.

“Loans are there to be obtained but the conditions are too stringent for rural farmers to access. Liberal terms to cooperative groups may help to address the challenge of funds and access to input may be tied to repayment with harvest,” he said.

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New Zealand loses 100,000 hectares to dairy expansion

NaijaAgroNet

Wood Processors and Manufacturers Association, New Zealand has allayed fears that dairying boom expansion is eating into forest blocks and threatens wood security, as it claims to have lost 100,000 hectares of forest land in the last few years to dairy farming, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Board Chairman of the Association, Brian Stanley, in a forum of over 40 industry experts and community representatives at the Trailways Hotel, lamented that forestry and wood products producers were in a far tougher market than the agricultural sector, stating that it's not a wall of wood any more, but a hedge.

Expressing his dismay, Stanley established that although the nations wood industry offers a solution to the dairying's carbon emission problem but its being hurt by the dairying's expansion and stressed optimism that wood processing and manufacturing - the country’s third largest export sector at $2.5 billion a year, stands to risk its position.

Nationally the industry, as gathered by NaijaAgroNet, produces 70 per cent of its energy needs by burning waste wood, saving $1.1 billion annually, and Landscapers has estimated a $12 billion  "environmental value" of  forests made up of components such erosion control, nutrient recycling and soil formation.

Though the industry sees itself as the answer to dairying's need to offset carbon production and a solution to climate change; the association frowns at the level of government support regional producers get compared to other regional primary industries that didn't provide similar numbers of jobs. 

"Nor do they provide the same level of water quality or climate change control that the forest growing and wood processing industries are renowned for." Stanley stated.

Simultaneously, Association Chief Executive, Jon Tanner, also pointed out that the competition internationally, against governments owning 85 per cent of the world's forests and associated processing and setting their own rules, puts the organization on a tough unbalanced scale in the agricultural market.

Tanner submitted that the industry has a highly productive and efficient workforce, and a great opportunity as a solution to climate change, but faced major supply problems caused by logs being exported to China, and dairy conversions swallowing forest land. 

"We are an incredible industry building economic, social and environmental capital simultaneously. Trees are the pollution solution." He said.

The association NaijaAgroNet learnt was formed through a merger of the Pine Manufacturers' and Wood Processors' Associations and is holding a series of gatherings around New Zealand to tell what it says is a fantastic story of innovative and sustainable production providing thousands of jobs in the regions.

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FAO member countries urged to domesticate new world soil charter

NaijaAgroNet:

The over 190 member countries of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) have been urged to domesticate the newly endorsed World Soil Charter (WSC), NajiaAgroNet reports.

This is coming as the world celebrates  the 2015 International Year of Soils, at the 39^th FAO Conference to promote and institutionalize sustainable soil management at all levels, even as the 13 principles listed in its charter still remains valid

This according to the Global Soil Partners (GSP) is in light of new scientific knowledge gained over the past 30 years, especially with respect to new issues such as soil pollution and its consequences for the environment, climate change adaptation and mitigation and urban sprawl impacts on soil availability and functions. 

The original strong focus of the WSC on land use planning and land evaluation had to be adjusted; NajiaAgroNet gathered that, more recent key references and concepts such as the more widely understood framework of ecosystem services had to be reflected; major developments in the intervening period such as the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and ensuring spate of new agreements and the work of the Committee on Food Security had to be factored in; and the guidelines for action had to be reorganized and expanded to take account of a broader range of stakeholders. 

This was achievable through the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS), tasked with a revised text wide consultations within the international soil community and submitted to the GSP pleanary Assembly.

NajiaAgroNet also learnt that the first WSC was conceived and formulated, negotiated and adopted by the member countries in the 1981 FAO Conference and was a major normative instrument agreed by member states that the GSP partners was duty-bound to promote its principles and has requested all member states to move into its full implementation of the new World Soil Charter.

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