Dons ask ACE, WACCI to address food insecurity in Africa

NaijaAgroNet:

 Some university lecturers in Ghana have called on Africa Centres of Excellence (ACEs) and West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), to address the problem of food insecurity, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Ghana (UG) in-charge of Research, Innovation and Development, Prof John Gyapong, charged ACEs to help address the problem of food insecurity in West Africa through the training of plant breeders who will develop superior crop varieties of staple crops.

While the Director, WACCI, Professor Eric Yirenkyi  Danquah, on the other hand, said that after a rigorous, transparent and merit-based evaluation, WACCI and ACEs were selected to receive eight million dollars, about N1.59billion each as a project grant from the World Bank and recounted achievements of the centre to include the newly established Vegetable Innovation Laboratory (VIL) as part of efforts to promote vegetable production and food security in Ghana and the sub-region, saying that the VIL thematic areas include genetic improvement; vegetable production and quality control; processing; value chains and socio-economic research; policy research and knowledge management systems

The duo, NaijaAgroNet learnt, were speaking at a forum organized by WACCI of the University of Ghana (UG) for the five World Bank Africa Centres of Excellence (ACEs) in agriculture.

The forum titled, “Workshop for the Agriculture Education Front-runners in West Africa: ACE’s Learning Experience at WACCI” was on: “The march towards food security in Africa.”

Gyapong said the West African sub-region is looking up to the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) to train a critical mass of quality PhD graduates, NaijaAgroNet informs,

The program drew 52 participants, including scientists, researchers, Centre and Management staff from West and Central Africa the purpose of which was to allow the ACEs draw on lessons from the experiences of WACCI and also exchange institutional best practices.

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Pix:Prof John Gyapong,

Gov Gaidam partners China, trains 40,000 youths in irrigation

NaijaAgroNet:

 

The Governor of Yobe State, Ibrahim Gaidam, has concluded plans with Chinese agricultural investors to train about 40,000 youths in irrigation scheme, NaijaAgroNet reports.

 Gaidam said he will set up a new irrigation scheme which will engage youths across the State as part of his effort to empower youths for self-reliance.

A press release made available to NaijaAgroNet from the office of the Director of Press to the governor, Alhaji Abdullahi Bego, Tuesday, said, the governor, who is currently on a visit to the People’s Republic of China on the invitation of Chinese agriculture and infrastructure investors, has already met and held talks with various potential investors, including an irrigation equipment manufacturing firm called Rainfine (Dalian) Irrigation Company Ltd, which specializes in the manufacture, installation and training of people in centre pivot irrigation technology in the Chinese city of Dalia, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

According to the statement, Governor Gaidam has also visited a modern irrigation farm company in the town of Jixian called Tianjing Jixian Lvpusheng Vegetable Planning Company Ltd and had rewarding talks with the farm’s Managing Director, Ms Lu Xiulung, among other companies.

“Irrigation agriculture is very significant in unleashing the enthusiasm and capacity of our youth for self-reliance. We are very much committed to using irrigation as another catalyst for helping to empower our youths. This is why we came here to establish wide ranging partnerships that will accelerate irrigation agriculture in our State.

It went on to say that Governor Gaidam has also announced the setting up of a small committee of agricultural experts, under the leadership of former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Alhaji Gambomi Goni, to work out modalities on the implementation of the partnership with Rainfine Irrigation Company, including identifying at least four locations where new irrigation farms will be set up across the State, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE with additional report from Daily Post 

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Pix:Ibrahim Gaidam,

Germany doles out N2.39b to assist eight countries

NaijaAgroNets

Germany through its Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety has doled out $12 million, about N2.39billion to assist eight developing countries, NaijaAgroNet reports.

Under a new United Nations (UN) programme called “Integrating Agriculture in National Adaptation Plans programme”, Germany will through funding collaborate with Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) to work with ministries of agriculture in Nepal, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand, Uganda, Uruguay, Viet Nam and Zambia to incorporate agricultural sectors into National Adaptation Plans.

An FAO press release made available to NaijaAgroNet, said under the four-year initiative, countries will receive various types of support. FAO will offer policy advice and technical support to ensure that climate change adaptation priorities in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors are incorporated in this planning process. UNDP will engage with countries in managing climate risk, in planning and budgeting, and help them strengthen information systems, project formulation, and coordination between government institutions.

The initiative, NaijaAgroNet gathered, has immediate potential to link with and amplify existing programmes in the target countries and improve their prospects for accessing global funds for climate finance, such as the Global Environment Fund and the Green Climate Fund.

The Executive Coordinator UNDP Global Environment Finance Unit, Adriana Dinu, said, "Our food security in the decades to come depends on our collective ability to innovate and adapt to climate change. The agriculture sector is critical to every nation and is a lifeline for livelihoods. Therefore, FAO and UNDP have joined forces to support partner countries to integrate agriculture into National Adaptation Planning (NAP) processes."

While the Director of FAO's Climate, Energy and Tenure Division, Martin Frick, added ,"Ministries of agriculture, fisheries and forestry need to be at the table when countries develop and implement domestic policies to address climate change,"

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Earth observation applications critical for African regional integration

 NaijaAgroNet

The Commissioner, Rural Economy and Agriculture, African Union Commission, (AUC), Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, has said earth observation applications at continental, regional and national levels are critical for African integration, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Speaking recently at the 1st Monitoring for Environment and Security Forum which examined how earth observation data through Monitoring for Environment for Security in Africa (MESA) Project supports policy, planning and decision making at the national, regional and continental level in Africa.

With the theme “Streamlining MESA products and services towards the decision-making cycle in support of sustainable environmental management” the forum, NaijaAgroNet gathered, was organised by the African Union Commission (AUC) in association with Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Government of Kenya through the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources with the support of the European Union.

Rhode stated  that  “the MESA Project contributes to the increase of information management, decision-making and planning capacity of African institutions mandated for agriculture, environment, climate, fisheries, food security and related responsibilities. This is critical for African regional integration.”

NaijaAgroNet also learnt that the Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Natural Resources, Judi Wakhungu, said, cases of poaching and deforestation have reduced by 50 per cent this year compared to 2013.

 “Before this, my office and team members had to travel physically to protected area which took several days and incurred huge costs. Thanks to MESA projects, Kenya Wildlife Service can now get snapshots of satellite images of the protected areas on a single page,” said Wakhungu.

MESA has brought together 250 international delegates comprising decision and policy makers, planners, earth observation data users and experts from across the continent, NaijaAgroNet.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE, additional report from Capital News

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Africa must close gap between gender

NaijaAgroNet

The Africa Development Bank (AfDB), Special Envoy on Gender, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, has said that the huge gap in wages and agricultural yields between men and women must be closed if Africa is to achieve full economic transformation, reports NaijaAgroNet.

"African women feed the continent and they can feed the world, too. But we must close the wide gap in wages and agricultural yields between men and women if Africa is to achieve full economic transformation," she disclosed.

Information obtained from the bank’s website revealed that the office of the Special Envoy on Gender (SEOG) and the Department for Agriculture and Agro-industry (OSAN) of the African Development Bank (AfDB),  launched a new report called "Economic Empowerment of African Women through Equitable Participation in Agricultural Value Chains"in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The event which gathered high-level participants, including stakeholders from both the private and public sectors from the countries and sectors examined in the report, looked at cocoa, coffee, cotton and cassava sectors in Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Nigeria, respectively.

"This report prepares the ground to empower women, to take a leading role in the business of farming and agricultural value chains, regionally and globally," said the immediate past President of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka.

Agriculture in Africa, NaijaAgroNet gathered, is poised to remain one of the most important economic sectors, accounting for around 25 per cent of the continent's GDP. Over 60 per cent of its citizens rely on agriculture for some form of income. To transform the sector, the economic empowerment of women through boosting their productivity and raising their participation in commercial and higher value-add activities in agriculture is central.

In some countries, such as Rwanda, Malawi and Burkina Faso, over 90 per cent of economically active women are involved in agriculture, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

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Liberia to analyze food, nutrition security using Cadre Harmonise ‘e’

NaijaAgroNet

The Executive Director, food security and nutrition unit, Ministry of Agriculture, Liberia, Deroe A. Weeks, said Cadre Harmonise ‘e’ is meant to analyze food and nutrition security, NaijaAgroNet reports.

She said this recently at a week-long workshop in Monrovia, adding that the national workshop was intended to analyze food and nutrition security using the Cadre Harmonise ‘e’ as a regional tool even as Liberia has joined 14 other countries in the Sahel and West Africa to work towards the adoption of the tool to tackle food and nutrition insecurity.

According to Weeks, the tool will help Liberia in terms of data collection and the documentation of the country's food and nutrition security and insecurity situations.
She explained that Liberia does not have hands-on data in terms of reporting food and nutrition insecurity and that the application of the regional tool will only enable the country be on track and collect data that will not be unique to other regional countries that are already using the Cadre Harmonise ‘e’ tool.

ALL AFRICA.COM reports that the Cadre Harmonise implementation process in the Sahel and West Africa has been fully underway and creates the country's ownership and occupies a strategic position among the various regional tools and will be used in the CILSS-ECOWAS-UEMOA region as a trigger tool of regional food reserve.

Dr. Charles McClain who represented the Agriculture Minister,  ITRealms gathered, thanked the participants and said as lead institution, the MoA is interested in getting more analytical data as the process moves on.

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 Pix: Deroe A. Weeks,

IITA expert advocates youth connection to improved technology, agribusinesses

 NaijaAgroNet

The Project Leader, Cassava Weed Management Project, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Alfred Dixon, has advocated youth connection to a source of improved technology and access to information of good agricultural businesses, NaijaAgroNet reports.

“Youth engagement in agric can be in the production aspect like crop production, tuber production and cassava stem production. It can be in the post harvest aspect by adding value to what is already produced or the consumption aspects which come after harvesting, it involves handling and packaging, transportation, distribution, retailing, marketing and warehousing,” he said. 

Dixon said this recently while delivering keynote at the Covenant Capital, a division of Covenant Christian Centre on the agricultural sector which has the theme “SME Opportunities in Nigeria’s Agribusiness Value Chain.”

The event which took place at the church auditorium in Iganmu, Lagos witnessed other  experts who noted that Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy is expected to double its current population by 2050 and that the future of the country’s economy is in the hands its teeming youth population.

They stressed that with the high rate of youth unemployment in the country, there is need for government to harness the potential in the agricultural sector by making it very attractive to the youths.

The Vice Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Multi-Trex Integrated Foods Plc Oladimeji Owofemi said,  “In the logistic performance index Nigeria is ranked lower than South Africa which has a population of just 45 or 50 billion people. Government needs to provide good road infrastructure network to reduce production cost.”

While the CEO, X- Ray Farms, Afioluwa Mogaji, in his speech harped on the need for youths across the country to see the opportunities in the agricultural value chain because the opportunities are enormous.“With the massive opportunities in agriculture in the country, oil is supposed to be an alternative to agriculture,” he said.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE with additional report from Business Day

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Pix: Alfred Dixon

PICS bags reduce incidents of food poisoning

NaijaAgroNet

Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags have been designed for effective storage of grains even as they also have the capacity to reduce the incidents of food poisoning, reports NaijaAgroNet.

PICS  was designed by the Purdue University, United States of America to provide a simple, effective low-cost method of reducing post-harvest losses in cereal crops due to insect infestations in West and Central Africa.

NaijaAgroNet learnt through PICS media consultant in Ghana, David Babayara, who was interviewed by Daily Graphic, that using the PICS bags to store foodstuff also reduced the incidents of food poisoning.

“This is because PICS bags employ the hermetic system of storage, hence food stored in them does not need to be treated with chemicals before storage,” Mr Babayara stated.

Effective storage of grains such as maize, beans, cowpea, groundnuts and rice has always been a major challenge to smallholder farmers in the whole Africa. Grains are mostly destroyed by pests and insects within three months of storage due to the lack of proper storage methods for farmers and food dealers.

A PICS bag consists of two layers of polyethylene bags surrounded by a third layer of woven polypropylene. This oxygen-deprived environment proves fatal to insects and pests and therefore prevents them from causing harm to stored grains, NaijaAgroNet gathered.

PICS technology was developed in the late 1980s by Professor Larry Murdock of Purdue University with support from partners in Cameroon and funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

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Pix: David Babayara,

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Nigeria ranked 91st on food security index 2015

NaijaAgroNet

Nigeria has been ranked 91^st on the world food security index which was released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Global Food Security Index which is based on the assessment of 109 countries, aims to rate the level of food sector development.

Nigeria emerged 91st with the average 37.1 index. However in the spheres of quality and safety and availability Nigeria is ranked the 72nd and the 87th.  The country also has 3 important strengths: nutritional standards, volatility of agricultural production and agricultural import tariffs. It should be noted that for the last 4 years Nigeria has improved its index by 3.2 points.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) website, “The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) considers the core issues of affordability, availabilty, and quality and safety across a set of 109 countries. The index is a dynamic quantitative benchmarking model, constructed from 28 unique indicators that measure these drivers of food security across both developing and developed countries.

Among Sub-Saharan African countries Nigeria is the 12th of 28. The country is followed by Sudan, Niger, Chad, Zambia and others.

The first place in the rating, NaijaAgroNet gathered, is held by the US with 89.0 total score. The second and the third places belong to Singapore and Ireland with 88.2 and 85.4 indexes respectively. Others are the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, Australia, France, Norway and so on.

According to experts “Global food security has made a rapid improvement over the past year. We see this in the increased efficiency of food systems and improvements in the nutritional quality of the food to which populations have access.” 

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