2 Nigerians pick African woman prizes @New African...: ITRealms : Two Nigerian women, Mrs. Amina J. Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary to the United Nations and African model and fashion icon, Jo...
ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!
Search NaijaAgroNet
Friday, April 14, 2017
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Malala honoured as youngest UN Messenger of Peace
The United
Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, has
designated children’s rights activist and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai as a
UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on girls’ education, reports
NaijaAgroNet.
“You have been to the
most difficult places […] visited several refugee camps. Your foundation has
schools in Lebanon, in the Beka’a Valley,” said Mr. Guterres at a ceremony in
the Trusteeship Council chamber at UN Headquarters, in New York.
“[You are a] symbol of
perhaps the most important thing in the world, education for all,” he
highlighted.
Ms. Yousafzai, who was
shot in 2012 by the Taliban for attending classes, is the youngest-ever UN
Messenger of Peace and the first one to be designated by Secretary-General
Guterres since he assumed office in January this year.
Accepting the
accolade, Ms. Yousafzai underscored the importance of education, especially
education of girls, for advancing communities and societies.
“[Bringing change]
starts with us and it should start now,” she said, adding: “If you want to see
your future bright, you have to start working now [and] not wait for anyone
else.”
UN Messengers of Peace are
distinguished individuals, carefully selected from the fields of art,
literature, science, entertainment, sports or other fields of public life, who
have agreed to help focus worldwide attention on the work of the global
Organization.
Backed by the highest
honour bestowed by the Secretary-General on a global citizen, these prominent
personalities volunteer their time, talent and passion to raise awareness of
UN’s efforts to improve the lives of billions of people everywhere.
Boko Haram: UNICEF commends FG on release of over 500 women, children
UNICEF has welcomed the release of nearly six hundred women,
children and elderly men from Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri, Borno State,
Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.
“The action of the Nigerian army today is a major step
towards the protection of children affected by the ongoing crisis. It provides
hope in a conflict that continues to have an enormous impact on people’s
lives.’’
“These children were held under administrative custody on
alleged association with Boko Haram militants. They are victims of the conflict
and it is crucial that they receive medical care, psychosocial support and
other basic services that will help them to regain their dignity.”
“Once that process of recovery has started, we can help them
to return to their families and to school or learn new skills that will give them
some hope for the future.”
UNICEF continues to work with the relevant authorities to
access children who are held for screening in order to safeguard their care and
protection.
When military screening is needed, children should only be
held as a measure of last resort and for the shortest time possible in
accordance with national and international standards. These children are –
first and foremost – victims of the conflict and require support to recover
from their experiences and reintegrate with their families and communities.
Uboshe Uboshe/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology
From sea to plate: FAO leads tracking fish to keep illegal catches offshore
A Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)-led is pushing for
the establishment of internationally agreed standards that could guide the
development of catch documentation schemes aimed at keeping illegally caught
fish off store-shelves and consumers' plates has taken an important step forward,
reports NaijaAgroNet.
A set of draft Voluntary Guidelines on Catch Documentation
Schemes was last week unanimously adopted by a technical consultation that
brought a 5-year negotiation effort to a close, and are now poised for adoption
by all FAO Members at the UN agency's upcoming bi-annual governing conference
(Rome 3-8 July 2017).
Once approved by the Conference, the guidelines will act as
an internationally-recognized "gold standard" reference for
governments and businesses looking to establish systems that can trace fish
from their point of capture through the entire supply chain - from "sea to
plate" - in order to stop illegally caught fish from entering the
marketplace.
Globally, some 91-93 million tonnes of fish are captured
each year, and seafood products are among the world's most widely traded food
commodities, with an export value of $142 billion in 2016.
On top of that, Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)
fishing is estimated to strip as much as 26 million additional tonnes of fish
from the oceans annually, damaging marine ecosystems and sabotaging efforts to
sustainably manage fisheries.
Catch documentation schemes (CDS) offer a way to cut down on
trade in illegal fish. The basic concept: shipments of fish are certified by
national authorities as being caught legally and in compliance with best
practices; certifying hard-copy documentation then accompanies the fish as they
are processed and marketed nationally or internationally. Only fish with valid
documentation can be exported or traded to markets where a CDS requirement
exists.
Until recently, only a few such schemes had been
established, and mostly focusing on high-value species whose overexploitation
prompted particular concern, such as Chilean Seabass harvested in Antarctic
waters, or Atlantic and Southern Bluefin Tuna.
But with seafood trade at record highs and consumer demand
still rising, catch documentation schemes are increasingly seen as a tool that
could be more widely applied. Indeed, the EU since 2010 has used a CDS that
covers all fish shipments imported into the bloc from overseas; and in 2016,
the United States announced its own scheme, the Seafood Import Monitoring
Program.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
7m people may suffer severe hunger in Lake Chad Basin region
Estimated 7 million people may suffer severe hunger in the
Lake Chad Basin region, including northeastern Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and
Niger, reports NaijaAgroNet.
Speaking during a visit to Lake Chad Basin, the
Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mr. José
Graziano da Silva, this region requires immediate food and livelihood
assistance.
"The situation we have now is largely due to the
conflicts and armed groups that have devastated the lives and livelihoods
across the whole of Lake Chad region. It is like an opportunistic infection,
which is largely taking advantage of an already weak body from underlying
problems of environmental degradation, related droughts, low investment in rural
development and limited employment and livelihood opportunities for young men
and women. We need to work on the symptoms by restoring peace and treat the
disease by making the body stronger. This is all about resilience,"
Graziano da Silva said.
In addition, NaijaAgroNet
reports that over 1 million returnees and the majority of internally displaced
people in areas which have recently become relatively strife-free, have access
to land and may benefit from the forthcoming rainy season starting in May 2017
should sufficient agriculture support be provided.
"Protracted conflict has eroded coping capacities,
exhausted livelihoods and left people with no way to feed themselves and their
families. Agriculture cannot be an
afterthought. More than 80 percent of people rely on farming, fishing and
herding for their livelihoods," the FAO Director-General said.
NaijaAgroNet
reports that Graziano da Silva during his visit, met local farmers on several
FAO supported farms in Gongolong and Old Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria's
Borno State.
He was accompanied by the Federal Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology
Global food prices decline in March
… Sugar, vegetable
oils slide
The global
food prices monitored by Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) fell in March amid large available
supplies and expectations of strong harvests, reports NaijaAgroNet.
The FAO Food
Price Index, made available to NaijaAgroNet
showed average at nearly 171 points in March, marking a 2.8 percent drop from
the previous month while remaining 13.4 percent above its level a year
earlier.
FAO's Food Price Index is a trade-weighted index
tracking international market prices of five major food commodity groups.
FAO also released its first world cereal supply and demand
outlook for the year ahead, expecting it to be "another season of relative
market tranquillity" with grain inventories remaining at near-record
levels.
Meanwhile, NaijaAgroNet gathered that meat prices are exception in general downward
trend, according to the FAO Cereal Price Index declined 1.8 percent from
February, led down by wheat and maize. It is now roughly par with its March
2016 level.
The FAO Vegetable Oil Price Index was 6.2 percent lower on
the month. Palm oil and soy oil quotations both fell in March on the back of
improving production forecasts, while those of rape and sunflower seed oils
also declined due to higher-than-expected availabilities.
The FAO Sugar Price Index declined by 10.9 percent to its lowest
level since May 2016 amid weak import demand and expectations of robust
Brazilian supplies entering world markets as a result of strong harvests and
slower domestic uptake for bio-ethanol production.
Buoyant milk supplies led to a 2.3 percent monthly decline
in the FAO Dairy Price Index, which, however, remained well above its year-ago
level.
The FAO Meat Price Index rose 0.7 per cent, led upward by
firm import demand from Asia for bovine meat and pigmeat.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology
Monday, April 10, 2017
FAO boss in northeast Nigeria, calls for increase assistance
The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) José Graziano da Silva, has visited the hunger-threatened
northeastern Nigeria, and called for urgent increase in humanitarian
assistance, reports NaijaAgroNet.
Da Silva also said that restoring agriculture-based livelihoods
is key to recovery and peace efforts in Lake Chad Basin region.
"If we miss the coming planting season, there will be
no substantial harvests until 2018. Failure to restore food production now will
lead to the worsening of widespread and severe hunger and prolonged dependency
on external assistance further into the future," Graziano da Silva
said.
He insisted that the time for all to act is now, stressing
that insecurity in the Lake Chad Basin - which incorporates parts of Cameroon,
Chad, Niger and northeastern Nigeria - has resulted in the largest humanitarian
crisis in Africa.
NaijaAgroNet gathered
that the conflict has forced an estimated 1.9 million people to abandon their
homes and their predominantly agricultural livelihoods, in northeastern Nigeria
alone.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
UTME: JAMB calms 150 angry candidates
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on
Wednesday confirmed the registration of 871,576 candidates so far for the 2017
Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), reports ITRealms.
The Registrar and Chief Executive of JAMB, Prof. Is-haq
Oloyede, said this in an interview with
journalists on Wednesday evening after inspecting some registration centres in
Abuja, where he also also ruled out extension of the registration process, despite
the challenges faced by candidates nationwide.
He also promised to comply if invited and summoned by the
House of Representatives, to clarify what has been responsible for the
challenges of registration being experienced by candidates.
"If I am invited, who am I not to answer them? I will
honour their invitation because they are our employers" he said.
Before his intervention, Oloyede had earlier threatened to
revoke the license of Digital Bridge Institute, a parastatal under the National
Communications Commission (NCC), for not complying with JAMB registration
rules.
According to him, the DBI was on wireless system which made
registration to be very slow.
He said the centre was supposed to register 100 candidates
at a time but could only take 20, while other centres visited were not having
any problem registering candidates.
To appease the over 150 angry candidates clustering the
centre gate, Oloyede quickly arranged for them, especially the males, to be
moved to other centres where there were less pressure.
However, the management of DBI attributed the delay to poor
net work, saying that the router could only take 20 candidates at a time
According to him, the target of the organisation was to
register 1.4 million candidates for the UTME in 2017.
Oloyede added that no candidate would be left out of the
registration process despite having a week before the end of the exercise.
He said, “About 871, 576 candidates have been registered as
at today (Wednesday evening). We are going to 1, 467, 000 candidates. What
remains is 595,647 and we still have a whole week.
“No candidate will be left unattended to at the closing of
this exercise. You do not want me to extend just for the sake of extension
because I monitor on my screen. That is why there is a difference between the
closing date for registration and the closing date for sale. By the time we
sell, we will know how many that have bought but have not registered.”
The JAMB Registrar also said arrangements would be made for
physically challenged candidates to write the examination.
Uj. N. Dominic/GEE
Sustainable seed businesses to transform cassava production in Nigeria
Stakeholders have said that businesses selling improved
varieties and high quality cassava stems for cultivation could help African
farmers significantly raise their productivity, especially in Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.
This, NaijaAgroNet
gathered will mean more Naira from the same land, inputs and effort.
Stakeholders at the end of a national conference on cassava
seed system organized by the project, “Building an Economically Sustainable
Integrated Cassava Seed System” (BASICS) that was held at the Institute of
Tropical Agriculture (IITA) (www.CassavaMatters.org), Ibadan last week
Thursday.
“The benefits of this raised productivity will be enjoyed by
all the stakeholders across the value chain in a sustainable way,” part of the
resolution stated.
The meeting, which reflected on the experiences of BASICS in
2016 and refined the project plan for 2017 and beyond, brought together
national and international researchers, academics, policymakers, the private
sector, non-governmental organizations and farmers to a roundtable.
Making the case for urgent need for all the stakeholders to
work towards a sustainable seed system in Nigeria, Hemant Nitturkar, Project
Director for BASICS, reminded the participants that Nigeria is the largest
producer of cassava in the world with a production of about 54 million tons,
but its yield per hectare of cassava roots is about 8 tons, less than half of
the realizable yields of more than 20 tons per hectare. Researchers say one of
the factors responsible for the low yield of cassava is the low adoption of
clean and healthy seeds of improved varieties of cassava by farmers.
“We have to start with the right planting material and
nurture it with good agronomy and weed management practices. Each of these
three components has the potential to raise the productivity of cassava by 30
percent. If we do not improve our practices in seed, weed and agronomy, we are
incurring a lost opportunity of about 200 billion Naira annually from each of the
three issues,” he explained.
BASICS is commercially piloting two distinct pathways of
seed delivery. In one, called Village Seed Entrepreneur (VSE) model, in
partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Benue and with National
Roots Crop Research Institute (NRCRI), in Abia, Imo, Cross Rivers and Akwa Ibom
states, the project is helping develop a network of 130 community based seed
enterprises. These VSEs will source certified stems of improved varieties of
cassava from NRCRI and IITA to multiply and sell to the farmers in their
vicinity. This way, the farmers will not have to go far to source quality stems
for planting. In the second pilot called Processor Led Model (PLM), in
partnership with Context Global Development, the project is working with large
processors of cassava who will then make available quality stems to their
outgrowers with a buy back arrangement for the roots produced.
Slow and low multiplication ratio has been a key constraint
in cassava seed system. The project is piloting a new technology called
Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponics (SAH) for vastly rapid seed multiplication. Once
this technology from Argentina is adapted and perfected in Nigeria by the
Project, it is expected to have a significant impact on the ability of early
generation seed businesses to quickly bring suitable varieties within reach of
farmers. The project is also working with National Agricultural Seed Council
(NASC) and Fera of UK to improve the quality certification system in Nigeria.
Lawrence Kent, a senior program officer at the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, said the aim of the Project is to build an
economically sustainable seed system that is profitable both to the sellers of
quality stems and to the farmers who purchase and plant those stems. He
encouraged all to create reusable bridges to continuously link technology
developers with farmers through business oriented approaches, like the one
being implemented under BASICS.
Graham Thiele, Director for the CGIAR Research Program on
Roots, Tubers and Bananas led by the International Potato Center (CIP); Alfred
Dixon, IITA Director for Development and Delivery, and Project Leader for the
Cassava Weed Management Project; Amin Babandi, Director of Agriculture, FMARD,
represented by Segun Ayeni, Deputy Director, Roots and Tuber crops, FMARD;
Folusho Olaniyan OON, CEO, Contact Consulting Nigeria and Program Director,
AgraInnovate West Africa; Emmanuel Okogbenin, Director of Technical Operations,
AATF and Robert Asiedu, Director R4D, IITA-West, all shared perspectives and
added their voice for all stakeholders to jointly build a strong and
sustainable seed system for cassava in Nigeria and wished all the stakeholders
well.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Make rice value chain sustainable – IRRI, FOA
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have called for making of rice value chains
sustainable, reports NaijaAgroNet.
In a joint press statement made available to NaijaAgroNet gathered that in many countries around the world rice is a staple crop for food
security and consumption trends are growing.
“At the same time rice production is vulnerable to the
increasing impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events such as
droughts and floods,” the press statement read.
NaijaAgroNet reports that both FAO and IRRI are actively
promoting more sustainable rice practices throughout the value chain -
production, marketing and consumption - to optimize its nutritional properties
and as a means of improving livelihoods and tackling poverty, particularly in
rural areas.
FAO has developed the Regional Rice Initiative for Asia and
Pacific which promotes enhanced crop resilience while increasing efficiency and
farmers' income. In Africa and in Latin America the UN agency is engaged in
scientific and technical cooperation including the sharing of technologies and
best practices to increase production and productivity, including reduction of
post-harvest losses and improved grain quality.
IRRI is engaged in strengthening capacities of all rice sector
actors through its capacity development activities, including IRRI Education
and the Sustainable Rice Platform.
The Sustainable Rice Platform is a global alliance to
promote resource efficiency and sustainability in trade flows, production and
consumption operations, and supply chains in the global rice sector. The
Sustainable Rice Platform recently established the world's first standard for
sustainable rice. Through the Sustainable Rice Platform, IRRI aims to use
environmental and socio-economic benchmarks to maintain yields for rice
smallholders, reduce the environmental footprint of rice cultivation and meet
consumer needs for food safety and quality.
NaijaAgroNet noted that at the same time, IRRI Education works to build capacity
through-out IRRI's extensive partnership network.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technologyPix: Rice varities courtesy IRRI
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)