Steps in Growing Walnuts

Production of walnut requires you have lot of patience, because it takes 6 to 7 years for it to mature for harvest after planting the walnut sapling. • Site selection. Select a location with well draining, loamy soil. Avoid steep slopes, ridge tops, rocky soil, and soil with large amounts of clay. • Select good
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Award for the Operational Food Security Network

Raymond Lataste and Laura Gualdi, group moderators

with Jean-Pierre Halkin Head of Unit - DEVCO C1
- Rural development, Food security, Nutrition
29 February 2016. The “Operational Food Security Network” (Réseau Opérationnel de Sécurité Alimentaire - ROSA) of Capacity4Dev received an award during DG DEVCO staff seminar. ROSA animated the second most active group on Capacity4Dev out of 109 public groups.

ROSA is an initiative of the Directorate General for Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid (Unit C1 – Rural Development, Food Security and Nutrition in collaboration with Unit R7 – Training, Knowledge Management and Document Management).

The objectives of the network:
  1. A place for information sharing and exchanges dedicated to food security
  2. The network has two complementary objectives: sharing information and exchanging experiences and knowledge in the field of food security
ROSA offers:
  • access to relevant information on issues relating to food security; 
  • a place for exchanging ideas, experiences and good practices;
  • regular updates on key subjects in the field of food security; 
  • a collaborative working tool which promotes interaction between network members.
Dowload the ROSA leaflet 

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RESPIRATORY DISEASES IN DAIRY FARMS

Livestock diseases are the major problems within the livestock production systems, and both dairy cows and calves are susceptible to respiratory diseases which are usually caused by viral and bacterial agent, and this includes: Infectious bovine rhinotracheitis virus (IBRV). Bovine respiratory syncitial Virus (BRSV) Bovine respiratory syncitial virus (BRSV) Mycoplasma species Haemophilus somnus, etc. These
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Coming to Nigeria Soon: The Malanville Innovation Platform (IP) and Rice Parboiling Technologies

9 February 2016. The SARD-SC project rice component in collaboration with AfricaRice and INRAB have installed energy efficient GEM rice parboiling technologies and innovations in the Malanville Innovation Platform (IP) in the irrigated rice ecology of northern Benin Republic.

The formal launch of the Malanvile IP, which attracted almost 1000 women from the nooks and cranny of the country, witnessed the presence of policy makers such as the mayors of Malanville and Gaya, Niger. It also provided additional policy incentive to the operationalization of the IP.

To efficiently use and manage the Grain quality Enhancer, Energy, efficient and durable material rice technologies(GEM) facility, 538 women rice parboilers including 10 from Gaya in Niger, were trained on processing and adding value to locally produced rice. Over a period of two months, these women households learned skills on rice parboiling and value addition as well as the management of the GEM parboiling facility.

The training alone resulted in 8 tonnes of quality parboiled rice which is already attracting consumers within and outside the Malanville community. As part of the IP process, 12 youths (10 male and 2 female) are being facilitated to learn various skills on rice processing and adding value and operation of equipment and farming tools.

The formal opening was attended by the IITA/SARD-SC Coordinator, Dr Chrys Akem. He remarked that in general, the SARD-SC project has challenges in effectively addressing gender equity – active involvement of women in project activities. The deployment of the GEM rice parboiler in the Malanville IP has fully demonstrated that pairing gender sensitive technological innovation with institutional change, can significantly bring about gender mainstreaming in agricultural productivity programs and projects.

The Malanville IP also received milling machine and other farming equipment from AfricaRice through the Japan Emergency. One of the youths of the Malanville IP who was trained on the use of farming equipment indicated that with appropriate machinery, he realized that rice farming can be enjoyable and not a burden. He is motivated to start his own rice farm in addition to the help given to the household farms. The Mayor of Malanville, Dandakoe Inoussa said that “The GEM parboiler and other technologies and innovations should be rolled out in northern parts of Nigeria close to Malanville, as well as Gaya in Niger, because we are the same people. We share the same values and culture, and can easily share and learn productivity enhancing technologies and innovations to improve livelihoods.”

To date, over 1000 women households have been reached through the GEM technology and innovations in two IPs in Benin. The GEM is being rolled out in combination with enhanced packaging and branding of locally produced rice to attract urban rice consuming households and contribute to raising incomes of women and employment opportunities for youth in the rural economy. Already, Nasarawa in Nigeria and Gaya in Niger in consultation with their respective research institutes, have requested for the GEM technology and innovation and these will be deployed in Nigeria and later in Niger.
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Looking for Healthy Eating? Come to Africa!

Many diets in Africa contain a plethora of
 nutritious leafy greens. Photo credit: Joan Baxter
A 2015 study published by The Lancet Global Health journal looked at the consumption of food (both healthy and unhealthy items) and nutrients in 187 countries in 1990 and then again in 2010. The aim was to determine which countries had the world’s healthiest diets.

It found that none of the healthiest ten diets is in a wealthy Western nation, nor are any in Asia. Most were found in Africa, which is so often portrayed as a continent of constant famine in need of foreign know-how and advice on how to eat and to grow food.

And yet, of the ten countries with the healthiest diets on earth, nine of them are African.

What’s more, the three countries with the very best diets are some the world’s poorest. Chad, ranked as having “very low human development”, 185th of 188 nations on the United Nation 2015 Human Development Index, has the world’s healthiest diet. After that come Sierra Leone and Mali, 181st and 179th on the same Index.

Many diets in Africa contain a plethora of nutritious leafy greens. Photo credit: Joan Baxter

The only non-African country on the top ten list is Israel, in ninth place. Other African nations with the best diets are, in descending order: The Gambia, Uganda, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Somalia.

This doesn’t mean that these countries have no food insecurity, hunger or malnutrition. But it does mean that it is time for a serious rethink on how “development” affects diets – especially among the development agencies, international institutions and donors in the (sometimes lucrative and self-serving) business of food aid or improving food security and nutrition in Africa.

The authors of the study conclude that their results have “implications for the reduction of disease and economic burdens of poor diet by lowering the consumption of unhealthier foods, increasing the consumption of healthier foods, or both”.
But this is unlikely to happen so long as the development initiatives claiming to improve food security and eliminate malnutrition in Africa fail to recognize that their technological and market fixes may well encourage a nutrition transition away from healthy traditional diets and foods. And in doing so, they may merely compound the problems caused by already high rates of undernutrition with a whole set of new diet-related health issues.
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