Allocating N4n to Aso Rock clinic is unrealistic – Rep Pondi

NaijaAgroNet:

The Honourable member representing Burutu Federal Constituency of Edo State at the Federal House of Representatives, Mr. Julius Pondi has said the budget would not be realistic, especially given the alleged fraudulent allocations quoted in the 2016 appropriation bill, reports NaijaAgroNet.

He cited for instance the allocation of N4bn to the maintenance of Aso Rock clinic, arguing that it does not make sense to vote such amount on Aso Rock clinic when at every little ailment those the clinic are meant for will be on their way for medical tourism.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that the sum of N3,889,015bn was initially budgeted for purchase of vehicles in the first budget, but this was changed downwards to N340m in the corrected version, while N3,914,197,062bn, which was not in the first budget document was now accommodated for purported annual maintenance of Villa facilities.

Pix: Hon. Pondi
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Syrian farmers need donors’ support

NaijaAgroNet:

The Syrian farmers need donors’ support now than ever, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), NaijaAgroNet reports.

The United Nations Agriculture agency made this disclosure in a press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet on Friday in Rome, noting that with the war in Syria now approaching its sixth year, agricultural production has plummeted and food supplies are at an all-time low, pushing millions of people into hunger. 

“FAO today called on governments to provide a boost in funding targeted at helping farmers keep their lands in production to prevent the situation from deteriorating even further,” part of the statement read.

The agency's appeal comes ahead of a 4 February international donors' conference in London being convened by the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Kuwait and the United Nations to mobilize support for humanitarian work in Syria.

"The conflict has decimated the agriculture sector, which has had a major impact on food supplies and markets. Currently over half of Syrians remaining in the country are food insecure, with one in three people unable to afford basic foods," said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that as national food production has collapsed, food prices in Syria have soared with prices in some markets for wheat flour and rice jumping by as much as 300 percent and 650 percent, respectively, over the past 18 months.

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Save & Grow adoption encourages ecosystem-based farming

NaijaAgroNet:

A new book from the stables of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has shown that eco-system-based farming has come of age, through the adoption of Save and Grow initiative, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The new FAO book launched Wednesday in Rome, takes a close look at how the world's major cereals maize, rice and wheat - which together account for an estimated 42.5 per cent of human calories and 37 per cent of our protein - can be grown in ways that respect and even leverage natural ecosystems. 

Drawing on case studies from around the planet, the new book illustrates how the "Save and Grow" approach to agriculture advocated by FAO is already being successfully employed to produce staple grains, pointing the way to a more sustainable future for farming and offering practical guidance on how the world can pursue its new sustainable development agenda.

"International commitments to eradicate poverty and tackle climate change require a paradigm shift towards a more sustainable and inclusive agriculture able to produce higher yields over the longer term," said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

The two recent landmark global agreements, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - which require eradicating hunger and putting terrestrial ecosystems on a sound footing by 2030 - and the Paris Climate Change Agreement (COP21), only underscore the need for inclusive innovation in food systems, he adds. 

While the world's cereal harvests may be at record levels today, their productive base is increasingly precarious amid signs of groundwater depletion, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity and other woes marking the end of the Green Revolution model. Meanwhile, global food production will need to grow by 60 percent - mostly on existing arable land and in the face of climate change  - to feed the future population in 2050,  making it all the more urgent for the smallholders who grow the majority of the world's crops to be enabled to do so more efficiently and in ways that don't further increase humanity's ecological debt.

Save and Grow is a broad-based approach to environmentally friendly, sustainable agriculture aimed at intensifying production, protecting and enhancing agriculture's natural resource base and reducing reliance on chemical inputs by tapping into the Earth's natural ecosystem processes, and to increase farmers' gross income. As such it is an approach intrinsically crafted to contribute to the SDGs and foster resilience to climate change.

Viable Save and Grow practices range from growing shade trees that shed their leaves when  adjacent maize crops most need sunlight, as tried with success in Malawi and Zambia, to scrapping tillage and leaving crop residues as soil surface mulch, a method applied on a massive scale by wheat farmers on the Kazakhstani steppe and increasingly by innovative slash-and-mulch practices adopted by farmers in the highlands of Central and South America. 

The time has now come for ideas that have proven themselves in farmers' fields to be upscaled in more ambitious national programmes, FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva says in the foreword to Save and Grow in Practice in Practice: A Guide to Sustainable Cereal Production, a book he described as "a contribution to creating the world we want."  

Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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FAO sets $50m emergency fund for Ethiopia drought

NaijaAgroNet:

The amount of drought witnessed at the end of 2015 and cross over to 2016 is giving the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) a lot of concern, hence it voted the sum of $50m for emergency in the drought-ridden Ethiopia, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The droughts attributed to the strongest El Niño weather episode in the last several decades, FAO said, has caused repeated crop failure, decimated livestock herds and driven some 10.2 million people across Ethiopia into food insecurity.

FAO revealed this to NaijaAgroNet in its emergency response plan to urgently protect livestock and rebuild crop production in the Horn of Africa nation. 

According to the FAO Representative for Ethiopia, Mr. Amadou Allahoury, the outlook for 2016 is very grim, adding that "After two consecutive seasons of failed crops, the success of the main cropping season that starts now will be critical to preventing conditions from worsening."

Mr. Amadou equally said that continued drought throughout the beginning of 2016, also means pasture will become even more scarce, which will negatively impact livestock keepers that rely on those grazing lands and water points for their food security.

"Food overall will become harder to access if we continue to see prices rise, food stocks deplete and livestock become weaker, less productive, and perish," he said. 

The El Niño phenomenon is associated with the abnormal warming of sea surface temperature in parts of the Pacific Ocean that has severe effects on global weather and climate patterns - leading to reduced rainfall and drought in some regions and heavy rains and flooding in others. 

Under the current El Niño, crop production in Ethiopia has dropped by 50 to 90 per cent in some regions and failed completely in the east. The drought resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of livestock.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE +Naija AgroNet @FAO News
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Anambra urges citizens to adopt hygienic life style

NaijaAgroNet:

The Anambra State Government has alerted Anambrarians of the outbreak of Lassa fever, urging citizens to live a hygienic life style, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The Hon. Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Anambra State, Dr. Barr. Mrs. Uju Nwogu made this known in Awka, the state capital, saying that they wish to alert the public of reported cases of outbreak of Lassa fever in some states of the federation, including Bauchi, Kano, Taraba, Niger, Ondo, Edo, and Rivers among others, thus disease is caused by lassa virus.

The disease, she said, which spreads widely is transmitted by infected rats, noting that it spreads to human beings through contact with urine and droppings of infected rats and also contact with the body fluid, blood, urine and vomitus of infected persons.

“The symptoms of Lassa fever include fever, abdominal pains, headache, vomiting and muscle cramps. Other symptoms of the disease include bleeding from the nose, nostrils and passing of bloody stool,” she said, stressing that members of the public who experience any of these symptoms are advised to report to the nearest hospital or health clinic within their areas.

Mrs. Nwogu pointed out that in order to avoid the contact and curb the spread of this disease, “all persons are advised to maintain good personal hygiene, wash their hands regularly with soap and clean water and keep their surroundings clean. Report persons who have the symptoms of Lassa fever to the nearest hospital or health centre. They should also rid their environments of rats as well as keep their food away from rodents.”

Equally, she said, all health care providers and disease notification and surveillance Officers are advised to report any case of the disease in their locality to the State Ministry of Health.

“Ndi Anambra lets continue to keep our environment clean. Lets maintain good personal hygiene.
Lets be our brothers keeper,” she urged.

 

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