CGIAR: Feeding our Future by Bill Gates

You’ve probably never heard of CGIAR, but they are essential to feeding our future

What’s for dinner?

It’s a question asked every day in homes around the world. No other organization has done as much to ensure families—especially the poorest—have an answer to that question as CGIAR, the world’s largest global agricultural research organization.

More than 50 years ago, CGIAR’s research into high-yielding, disease-resistant rice and wheat launched the Green Revolution,

South Africa Agoa threat sees calls for creation of small-scale poultry farmers

South Africa’s largest poultry producers should maintain their dominance in the market so that the country remains globally competitive, the SA Poultry Association (Sapa) said on Sunday.

This comes as the US threatened on Friday to suspend South Africa’s benefits from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) unless there was agreement on outstanding issues around meat, poultry and pork within 60 days.

 

The surprise move prompted discussion about the state of the poultry industry in SA, with voices raised in favour of encouraging the development of black, small-holding chicken farmers to enter the space to feed the country’s ever-growing demand for chicken.

Sapa CEO Kevin Lovell said curbing imports would create more domestic opportunity, but economies of scale still applied. "Small producers won’t necessarily have the economic efficiencies required to compete," he said.

Mr Lovell proposed that the government should manage imports. The association is also pushing for poultry to be declared a designated product for government procurement.

COCOBOD to help Bridge Global Cocoa Neutralise deficit

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is confident measures put in place to raise national cocoa production figures will soon translate into increased output to bridge the global cocoa deficit. The deficit is expected to peak at one million tonnes by 2020, which, if not checked, could cause prices of the beans to skyrocket.
However, with special yield-boosting initiatives such as the free distribution of hybrid cocoa seedlings, luring of youth into cocoa farming and the free distribution of fertilisers and other inputs, COCOBOD, which regulates the country’s cocoa sector, said its estimates showed that Ghana’s annual figures would rise in the next few years and subsequently neutralise the deficit.

We urgent Intervention to meet 20% Target- Manufacturers

Nigerian manufacturers say an urgent intervention from the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is key, if the country is to raise the non-oil sector’s contribution to gross domestic product to 20 percent.

 

The non-oil sector’s GDP contribution must hit 20 percent if it is to create sufficient jobs for about 24 percent of the country’s 174 million population, diversify the economy and help shore up the foreign reserves, experts say.

Richardson Okechukwu, speaks needs for ‘Government, Private Sector Partnerships to Nigeria’s Agric Revolution’

Richardson Okechukwu, project coordinator for the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the British-American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) Cassava Project was at the Flag-off and Inputs Distribution Ceremony for Otu, Ogboro and Igboho which took place at Otu Community Hall, Itesiwaju LGA, Oyo State, last week. He speaks on the Cassava Project and the need for a sustained collaboration between the government and the private sector to drive the nation’s agriculture revolution, among other sundry issues. Excerpt:

 

How do you describe the partnership between IITA and BATNF so far

Well, it has been a very complementary. One, at IITA we are technical experts, we always interact with the farmers and we always hear their complaints about what they would love to do and what they would love to achieve. On major thing they always lack is the resources to get the inputs that they need to implement the technical knowledge that they have learnt from what we are teaching them.

This, for many years, has been affecting adoption; it’s been affecting seeing the new faces of the farmers that we have been talking about. You know, people don’t like farmers because of the way they look and all those kinds of things.

Then you wonder how come we do this thing every year they are still doing this business of farming. We have found out that the main problem is lack of resources to implement these technologies. So the BATN Foundation provided this great opportunity for 110 people to have these inputs that cover everything from land preparation, planting materials, technical resource persons to be in ground, herbicides and fertilizers to be provided for them.

So what remains is the actualisation of those findings and results that we have been telling them is possible. So it is no longer business as usual. The beautiful thing here is that the BATN Foundation has made it a grant; but it will turn out to be a revolving fund, that at the exit of the Foundation, the grant will still be there for this group of farmers to access, to plant and to be on their own. Also, there are some elements of sustainability which you cannot find in other relationships. But we have it found in this one.

So IITA is bringing on board its partners to make sure that every missing gap like marketing, forming of cooperatives, group dynamics, conflict resolution between crop farmers and livestock farmers and all those kinds of hiccups are all addressed; so that we can see how this model can be a good example for many other people to adopt.

So how long has this partnership on the distribution scheme been on

Ghanaian Cost of Tomatoes Drop Further in Ghana Markets

Checks by Esoko Ghana revealed that there has been a stable supply of the local tomatoes from the growing areas such as Tuabodom, Akumadan and Navrongo.

 

A “medium size tomato tin” full of fresh tomatoes sold about GHS 13.21 dropping 31 percent in Accra.

Insurers request the National Flood Policy to Reduce Citizen’s Exposure

As Nigeria enters the high point of its rainy season, insurers are concerned about the rising level of exposure to flood risks for individual homes and businesses without adequate cover.

Though the level of awareness is low as a result of shortage of data to measure exposure, experts  believe that having a national insurance flood policy would spur insurers to provide appropriate policies, as well as intensify awareness to cover affected areas and critical investments. Some of the operators who spoke to BusinessDay last night, stated that the exposure is big but still unquantifiable due to lack of data.

Food and Agricultural Organisation troubles over Fall in Maize Growth

The Food and Agriculture Organisation on Thursday expressed concern over growing shortfall in maize grown in sub-Saharan Africa as well as poor production in other food in insecure hotspots.

 

In a statement in Rome, FAO said prospects for rice production in Asia and India had also deteriorated.

Raise in Tomato Prices due to Delayed Rains, Poor Irrigation, Fuel Scarcity

NIGERIA - Tomato fruit prices are skyrocketing across the country on account of delayed seasonal rains, inadequate off-season irrigation planning, a rising and ebbing fuel scarcity , and roads in disrepair.

Consumers  have thus turned to buying up stocks of  canned tomato puree, causing highier than expected sales in that segment. External economies are however benefiting most from this development, as most canned tomato products are imported.

Tomatoes constitute 18 percent of all vegetables consumed by the Nigerian populace, according to a research  by the Agricultural Economics department of the University of Ibadan.

Early in 2014, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, then governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), expressed concern about Nigeria’s N16 billion  annual import bill on tomato pastes. This, he said, was due to very high demand for tomatoes in the country, which unfortunately, the farmers could not provide because of poor storage methods. 

This year’s price increase has reached an unusual high of N30,000 for a 50kg basket of tomatoes at the Mile 12 market – a major farm produce hub in Lagos.

Nigeria’s agro industry holds 10m job opportunity

Urgent diversification of the economy through expansion of agro- industries has been brought to the fore, as Roberts Orya, CEO, Nigerian Export Import Bank, says the industry holds 10 million job opportunity.

According to him, the most important pillar for promoting Nigeria’s agro- industrial sector is the po- tential for job creation across the agric value chain.

Thin imports from Nigeria, others stabilise Asian rice prices

Asian rice prices were little changed this week, with export demand sluggish and Thai mills on an extended holiday, traders said on Thursday.

 

Sustainable Weed Management Technologies gets SON support

The cassava Sustainable Weed Management Technologies, which is meant to help smallholder cassava growers achieve sustainable increases in their productivity, has gotten the support of the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON).

 

The Director of Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), Dr Joseph Odumodu, has promised that the country’s standards regulator will work with the Cassava Weed Management Project to tackle weeds ravaging cassava fields in Africa.

ICT tools providing mobile money for agribusinesses

ICT-based agricultural financing/mobile money services are no doubt the result of firm collaboration between finance institutions such as banks and telecoms companies. Industry watchers have however observed that in African countries where it has been highly successful, the telecoms company rather than the bank leads the partnership. This model has led to massive usage by rural dwellers who constitute the greater percentage of the unbanked and who are engaged mainly in farming and other agribusinesses.

Below are highlights of some agric financing tools that have been tested and proven in East African countries and some other countries.

· Credit Information Sharing (CIS) system is a mechanism through which various lenders electronically pool and pull borrower information using centralised (credit reference bureau) databases, with the aim of addressing information asymmetry between borrowers and lenders.

But CIS will enable farmers to build a credit history for negotiating better credit terms. This is similar to the credit bureau system in Nigeria but in this case it is specifically for farmers or agribusiness investors.