Nigeria loses150,000 children from diarrhoea

 NaijaAgroNet:

The United Nations Children’s Fund has said that Nigeria loses over 150,000 children from diarrhea annually, largely caused by unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene practices, NaijaAgroNet gathered.

This revelation was made in a press release by Doune Porter, Chief of Communication of the agency as the world observes October 15, as Global Handwashing Day.

In a survey which was carried out by UNICEF in six states of Nigeria, it found that an average of 82 per cent of people washed their hands before eating, while only 53 per cent out of the total washed their hands with soap after defecation. Alarmingly, only about 14 per cent of people wash their hands with soap after cleaning a child’s faeces.

Regular handwashing with soap after using toilets, changing children’s nappies and before eating or handling food saves more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention. It can reduce deaths from diarrhea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter, NaijaAgroNet reports.

To mark this year’s Global Handwashing Day in Nigeria, UNICEF, with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, the National Task Group on Sanitation and other partners plans to reach at least 10 million Nigerians this year through high profile handwashing demonstrations in schools and communities, mass rallies, road shows, airing of jingles on radio and television, and dissemination of handwashing messages on U-Report, Facebook and Twitter.

 NaijaAgroNet  learnt that the eighth Global Handwashing Day comes less than a month after the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, including hygiene for the first time in the global agenda. One of the SDG targets is to achieve ‘access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene’ by 2030. 

Global Head of UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene programmes ,Sanjay Wijesekera, said, “Along with drinking water and access to toilets, hygiene – particularly handwashing with soap – is the essential third leg of the stool holding up the Goal on water and sanitation. From birth – when unwashed hands of birth attendants can transmit dangerous pathogens – right through babyhood, school and beyond, handwashing is crucial for a child’s health. It is one of the cheapest, simplest, most effective health interventions we have.”

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Global trading in herbal products estimated at N19. 9trn

NaijaAgroNet:

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Winifred Oyo-Ita, has said that trading in herbal products worldwide is estimated at $100 billion, about N19. 9 trillion,  NaijaAgroNet reports.

She said herbal products have become a great source of job and wealth creation worldwide even as she urged African countries to exploit their natural resources.

“I understand that Nigeria, like most other African countries presently, is yet to play very significant roles in this business. With our vast bio-resources, biodiversity and investment opportunities coupled with our competitive national advantage in this area and activities such as this, we should rapidly start to reserve this trend.”

“Given the important contribution that trade makes to economic growth and poverty reduction, we must strive to sustain Africa’s bio-resources and biodiversity to exploit her abundant natural resources.”

Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita was speaking at the 2015 HERBFEST workshop with the theme “Food as medicine: utilisation and sustainable exploitation of African medicinal plants and natural products” which was jointly organised by the Bio-Resources Development and Conservation Programme (BDCP), Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO) and Nigerian Natural Medicine Development Agency (NNMDA).

According to The Nation report, she recognized science and technology as a veritable tool to drive the economy towards growth and sustainable development, adding the ministry has the critical and strategic mandate to boost the sector.

“For the nation’s bio-business to thrive and be sustained, her medicinal, aromatic and pesticidal plants (MAPPs), animals/animal parts and other raw materials used for herbal medicine, species, cosmetics and other products development need to be properly identified, made readily available and backed with scientific evidence based information and technological infrastructure to enable their cultivation and conservation,” she advocated.

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New SDAs to end hunger by 2030

NaijaAgroNet:

 

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director General, Graziano da Silva, has said that the Sustainable Development Agenda's goals (SDAs) approved at last month's United Nations summit will end hunger by 2030,NaijaAgronet reports.

The agenda has eradication of hunger as one of its core goals. Its approval at last month's United Nations summit "brings new momentum to our efforts," Silva told delegates at the CFS plenary.

"Now the world has a set date to end hunger, to achieve food security and to end malnutrition in all its forms. I do not doubt that we can become the Zero Hunger generation.

"Building consensus takes time, but it helps things move faster later," he added, noting that FAO, often working with the World Food Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, is already putting the framework's principles into practice.

The CFS opened its plenary October12, marking the first international gathering on food security and nutrition since global leaders approved the Sustainable Development Agenda's goal, NaijaAgroNet.

The CFS is aninter-governmental body that serves as a forum for the review and follow up of food security and nutrition policies.

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African agriculture, food industry to hit N199.2 trnby 2030

NaijaAgroNet

 

The President and Chief Executive Officer, Earth Alive, David Gilmour, has said that African agriculture and food industry is currently worth US$310 billion, about N61.76trillion and has the opportunity to grow substantially to US $1 trillion about N199.2 trillion by 2030, NaijaAgroNet reports.

He said, African agriculture represents nearly half of the continent's economic activity and the industry is pro-actively looking for safer, healthier and better fertilizer technologies to meet the accelerating demand for organic growing.

“The African agriculture and food industry is currently worth US$310 billion and has the opportunity to grow substantially to US $1 trillion by 2030, offering the prospect of a three-fold increase: bringing more jobs, greater prosperity, less hunger, and significantly more opportunities which will enable farmers in Africa to better compete globally,” he said.

Mr. Gilmour also said his office is receiving accreditation for its innovative microbial biofertilizer - which helps produce larger and healthier crops - will be beneficial to organic and traditional farmers in Africa, and is a critical step for Earth Alive to unlock this enormous market opportunity as we continue to expand registration in new markets globally," Gilmour stated.

Earth Alive Clean Technologies Inc. which aims to be a key player in world markets of environmentally sustainable industrial solutions,  recentlyannounced that it is in the process of completing product registration for its patent-pending microbial biofertilizer in West Africa and Southern  Africa. This arduous and lengthy registration process is necessary for the commercialization of fertilizers and agricultural inputs in most countries worldwide, and the Company anticipates having product registration approval by early 2016.

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African Union commends ECOWAS on CAADP implementation

NaijaAgroNet:

The African Union (AU) commissioner in charge of  Rural Economy and Agriculture (REA), Mrs. Rhoda Peace Tumuslime, has commended the Economic Community for West Africa States (ECOWAS) on its strides in implementation of agricultural-related policies of the commission, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Speaking to NaijaAgroNet at the press conference on-going meeting of Specialised Technical Committee (STC) on Agriculture, Rural Development, Water and Environment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the headquarters of AU Commission, the Commissioner, commended ECOWAS, saying the regional organization is well organization, especially on the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) initiatives.

“ECOWAS is organized very well around CAADP, creating relevant institutions to ensure compliance on implementation,” she said.

Responding on how to optimise CAADP at the regional levels, she said, adding they have made efforts at setting up REC across the regions of the continent.

She further said that some other regions and precisely the Regional Economic Communities (REC) tend to meet very often to restrategise for the benefit of the continent.

The Commissioner also assured that AU has plans to evaluate the activities of STC within the intermediary years before its next meeting which has been scheduled every two years.

According to her, it is easier for nations on the continent to meet, have resolutions and see it through adequate implementation.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 
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Inclusion of Weather, Climate in STC status vital - Mukabana

NaijaAgroNet:

The Director of the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (inclusion of Meteorology and precisely weather and climate, in the established Specialized Technical Committees of the African Union, is vital AMCOMET) Secretariat in Geneva, Dr Joseph Romanus Mukabana, has stressed the inclusion of Weather and Climate Services in STC, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Dr. Mukabana made this known at the sideline of the newly inaugurated STC and underscored the importance of inclusion of Meteorology, saying that Weather and Climate information and Services provided by the WMO National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) in the amelioration of impacts of natural disasters caused by Weather and Climate extremes to the vulnerable communities in Africa.

 

Mukabana, who doubles as Director of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Office for Africa and Least Developed Countries (AFLCD), noted that Weather and Climate information and services provided by the WMO National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) in the amelioration of impacts of natural disasters caused to the vulnerable communities in Africa, could not be overlooked.

“The inclusion of Meteorology and precisely weather and climate, in the established Specialized Technical Committees of the African Union, is vital,” he declared.

This, he explained is imperative, considering their importance to human lives in the region.

He also expressed the hope that this suggestion by WMO would be considered by STC to afford Weather and Climate issues assume a cardinal part of the operational modality of the Union (AU)”, he maintained.

NaijaAgroNet recalled that in April 2010, the first Conference of Ministers Responsible for Meteorology in Africa, through the Nairobi Declaration, established the African Ministerial Conference on Meteorology (AMCOMET) as a high-level policy mechanism for the development of meteorology and its applications in Africa. AMCOMET is the inter-governmental authority on Meteorology in Africa.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) in Addis Ababa 

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IRRI boss advocates inter-operability portals for databases

NaijaAgroNet:

The Director General, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Robert Zeigler, has urged every gene bank in the world to re-design their databases to match some international standard, saying that what is needed is inter-operability, to create portals where everyone's databases can talk to another, NaijaAgroNet reports.  

Genome sequences of more than 3,000 rice varieties have been placed with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) by the world's leading rice research institute in a move boosting plans to set up a global data exchange system for crop genetic resources.

The Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Treaty (ITPGRFA) NaijaAgroNet informs, made the announcement at the 6^th session of the Governing Body of the FAO-based 136-member nation plant treaty that is being held in Rome this week.

Around the world governments and organizations are storing genetic material in seed banks, but without one single gateway to genetic resource data, it is very difficult for researchers and plant breeders to know what is held where and what genetic resources are contained in the seeds.

The Secretary of the International Treaty, Shakeel Bhatti, said, "The genetic information that IRRI is making available to us, and the public at large, is a hugely generous and significant show of support to our endeavours to make all relevant information on genetic resources on plant crops available for future food security."

"To have so much information on rice, which after all is the basic food for half the world's population, placed at the fingertips of everyone is a major step in securing food security for future generations," he added.

The Rome meeting will discuss how to enhance the current multi-lateral system through the creation of one Global Information System on Plant Genetic Resources. This system containing information including on how to access genetic material and seed samples from existing gene banks would be developed and overseen by the Treaty's host, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), NaijaAgroNet learnt

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