Pressure Mounts on Communities Hosting Displaced People Affected by Boko Haram

NaijaAgroNet:
Pressure is mounting on rural communities hosting displaced people affected by the Boko Haram terrorism activities over palpable extension of the attacks on them, reports NaijaAgroNet.


This alarm is coming from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) which lamented that three consecutive planting seasons have been lost due to the fighting in northeastern Nigeria.


The United Nation’s agency stressed that large influxes of people escaping repeated Boko Haram attacks have put extreme pressure on already poor and vulnerable host communities and their fragile agricultural and pastoral livelihoods, thereby exacerbating the already precarious food and nutrition security situation.


FAO cautioned that failure to rebuild the rural economy will translate into lack of employment opportunities with possible harmful consequences including youth radicalization and enrolment into armed groups, resulting in continued civil unrest.


Similarly, FAO said, restarting food production in the newly accessible areas will have the additional benefits of encouraging displaced populations to return to their homes, while contributing to their improved health and nutrition, hence, it recently commenced seeking of assistance in that regard.


NaijaAgroNet recalls that in northeastern Nigeria, FAO has provided agricultural kits to vulnerable internally displaced people with access to land and host families.



These kits included improved varieties of millet or sorghum and cowpea seeds - a locally adapted and highly nutritious pulse - and fertilizers, enabling beneficiaries to grow their own food during the ongoing rain-fed season. The harvest is expected to start by the end of September and will allow beneficiaries to cover their food needs for up to 10 months.


Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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Invest in Innovative Agricultural Training in Africa

25 July 2016. RUFORUM Press Release. The MasterCard Foundation and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) will collaborate to test new models of agricultural education in Africa. The eight year commitment of US$ 27.1 Million from MasterCard will focus on smallholder farmers, connecting university education to the needs of rural communities to meaningfully contribute to Africa’s growth and development. Gulu University (Uganda) and Egerton University (Kenya), both early adopters of the RUFORUM approach, will be the key implementers of the program.

This eight year project will support the training of 220 (110 undergraduate and 110 post graduate) economically disadvantaged students from across Africa. Students will benefit from leadership training to ensure that they become Africa’s next generation of agricultural leaders. The Program will further provide opportunities for transformative action research using the expanded RUFORUM Community Action Research Program (CARP+) to enhance university-led community impact. The CARP+ will include supplemental focus on Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions to enhance gains through greater collaboration and joint action between universities and TVET institutions. The Program will be scaled out through a series of competitive challenge programs and policy to other universities in Africa.

This funding supports RUFORUM’s broader objective to train the next generation of agricultural scientists within Africa. It also strengthens RUFORUM’s vision of achieving ‘a vibrant agricultural sector linked to African universities that can produce high-performing graduates and high-quality research, responsive to the demands of Africa’s farmers for innovations, and able to generate sustainable livelihoods and national economic development’. The partnership between RUFORUM and MasterCard Foundation will help fast track the achievement of this vision.

Click here to download full press release.
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Buhari’s FG launches ‘The Green Alternative’ 2016-2020

The President Mohammadu Buhari-led Federal Government has launched a new agricultural sector roadmap known as The Green Alternative, for the projected promotion of agriculture for the year 2016 through 2020, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The launch which took place in Abuja, the nation’s capital, NaijaAgronet gathered was declared open by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on behalf of Mr. President on Monday.


He also said government would deploy 100,000 agriculture extension workers to assist farmers implement the policy, stressing that the move to diversify the economy through the agriculture sector had become necessary due to the huge food importation bill and the need to create jobs for the teeming population of youth in the country.


Osinbajo expressed optimism that the roadmap would address challenges in the sector and reposition it for economic growth and development


“The present administration came into office to meet an economy in a meltdown and we have to take difficult decisions on short, medium term in order to repair the huge damage done, especially by the dependence on oil, the worst not investing in infrastructure or deepening the diversification of our economy, or even building our reserves when oil sold at over a $100 per barrel.


“We knew that we had to set aright and put back the economy on a fast lane, inclusive growth, job creation for our huge population. One of the most critical components of that plan is to position agriculture, the arrowhead of our economic recovery efforts.


“There is no question at all that if we get agriculture right, we will get our economy right. The great clarity, ‘The Green Alternative, sets out strategies to resolve these challenges and particularly impressed that the roadmap does not dismiss the agric policies ‘building on the successes of the agricultural agenda’.


“This particular issue of alignment is crucial. For instance, there is no way we can encourage agriculture than to encourage food production when we allow unbridled importation of the same things we are trying to produce.


“Still on the issue of policy of alignment, as part of our 500,000 teacher corps that we will be engaging 100, 000 of them that will be trained as extension workers for our farms.


“I, hereby, launch the Agriculture Sector Roadmap: The Green Alternative; Agriculture Promotion Policy 2016-2020.”


Further, the Vice President said, the home-grown school feeding programme will have one meal a day for pupils and specifically the food will be from farms in each state. He also assured that the Bank of Agriculture would be recapitalised and repositioned to meet farmers’ financial need by giving them a single digit interest rate and low interest.


Equally speaking earlier, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said the roadmap for the sector was all encompassing and would salvage the economy from collapse.


“In this policy, you will see us navigating through the agricultural terrain, trucking on virtually every aspect. The emphasis on ‘Green’ is to capture the essence, spirit and orientation of this new policy/strategy document,” Ogbeh said.


Isaac Oyimah/Vanguard/GEE

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Pix: left, Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Chairman, House Committee on Agriculture, Mohammed Tahir Mongonu; Minister of Environment, Mrs. Amina Mohammed and Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige during the launch/public presentation of the Agricultureal Sector Roadmap, The Green Alternative Agriculture Promotion Policy 2016-2020, in Abuja, Monday.
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Innovative Approaches to Process Local Food in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia

4 August 2016. The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) funds research projects with innovative approaches in food processing of German agricultural and food research institutions with partners in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. BLE is the funding manager.

BMEL launched a call for proposals. The full title of the call is: “Innovative approaches to process local food in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, which contribute to improved nutrition, as well as qualitative and quantitative reduction of losses”. The German title is: "Innovative Ansätze zur Verarbeitung lokaler Lebensmittel in Subsahara-Afrika und Südostasien, die zu einer verbesserten Ernährung beitragen sowie qualitative und quantitative Verluste reduzieren"
  1. The call documents in German are the legally binding documents.
  2. Institutes outside of Germany are not eligible for DIRECT funding, thus non-German institutes cannot apply individually. But, German research institute(s) have to work closely together with institutes in the target region and are authorized to forward grants to their non-German partners. Therefore the German institute(s) will submit the short proposal as coordinator of international consortia.
  3. International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) and the Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture (AIRCA) are not eligible for funding.
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FMARD, IWMI launch ‘Wetin App’ for flood forecast, control

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) have launched a smart phone application tagged “Wetin App” for flood forecast and control, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The app, NaijaAgroNet gathered is available on Google App Store, and would be focusing on forecasting flood reports especially along the Niger and Benue rivers.


FMARD officials informed NaijaAgroNet that the application, would assist Nigeria in management of flood and its associated exigencies.


Speaking at the launch in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Shehu Ahmed, represented by the Director of Agricultural Businesses, Processing and Marketing, Alhaji Azeez M. Olumuyiwa said Nigeria sought the help of the IWMI to develop the application following the devastating flood of 2012, which led to huge destruction of farms, houses and human lives.


He also said the country had decided to turn that bitter experience into a blessing by looking at the various ways farmers and government could take advantage of technology.



In his remark, the Regional Director for Africa at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Professor Timothy Olalekan Williams, said the application was developed using data from the Nigerian Hydrological Service Agency (NHSA), the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NMA) and the satellite.


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