Hook up with Caribbean and Pacific Agri-Food Forum in Barbados

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Updates on Caribbean-Pacific Agri-Food Forum, 02-06 November 2015 in St Michael, Barbados.

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Caribbean-Pacific Agri-Food Forum, 02-06 November 2015 in St Michael, Barbados.

The Forum will be organized by CTA, in collaboration with the Barbados Agricultural Society (BAS) and several other partners. It will be held from 02 to 06 November 2015 in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Web 2.0 and Social Media goes to Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, Abuja

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) Netherlands who is working in collaboration with The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) organizes a training on Web 2.0 and Social Media for the staff of Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, Abuja. It has become apparent that Nigeria agriculture is evolving and the CTA is obviously positioning itself as a major partner.

More Information and pictures after the cut

Congrats my Boss! President of African Development Bank

President-elect AfDB, Dr. Akin Adesina

    After 50 years of the existence of African Development Bank, Nigeria won the exalted position of the Presidency of the continental organization. Dr. Akinwumi Adesina had a landslide victory after a very tough contest with other 7 contestants from across Africa. The rule is that a winner must score 50.1% and above of the regional votes.

Having attended for the first time, i could see that the election of the position of the African Development Bank cannot be regarded as a child’s play in any sense. The election, usually witnessed and conducted by member countries as well as non member community, including France, United States, Japan and China took place in SOFITEL Hotel, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.  The week-long event culminated in a series of vote, alignment and realignment, intrigues, power play and political manoeuvrings; which saw Akin Adesina emerged as the winner at about 4.30pm, 28th May 2015, having scored 60.50% regional vote and 58.10 of the total votes. 

Adesina's election score Board

With the support of God, Adesina did his home work quite well to make him stand out in all the preliminary interviews and presentations to the group; he is equally well qualified for the job. Let’s once again look at his background:
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has intimidating credentials and enviable track records of outstanding achievements within and outside Africa. He had contributed in so many ways to improve agriculture and food security in some African countries. Mr. Adesina has over 20 years of experience in African agriculture, development policy and rural development 

 

Adesina refutes allegation on Duty Waivers to Rice Importers!

HMA Adesina holding a bag of Nigerian Rice

 Reading the allegation of fraud in rice import and linking it to the Honourable Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adesina Akinwumi, I did not blink my eye because I would not imagined the Honourable Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Adesina Akinwumi being in charge of collection of duties or levies on food imports, specifically Rice. The Nigerian House of Representatives was in the media recently claiming that the Minister has no power to issue duty waivers to rice importers. The House further stated that the Minister did allocate rice import license to some rice millers without due process. The house lamented the bureaucracy in government procedure and the insincerity of the importers; both of which could undermine the good government policy on rice

Rice Pyramid in Kano

The lawmakers therefore called for a complete review of the 2014-2017 fiscal policy on rice, in order to achieve the intended goal of self sufficiency in rice production. I regarded the news as dead on arrival and therefore discountenanced it; my position was based on the following factors:

1.      Dr. A. Adesina is the Minister of agriculture of Nigeria and not of Thailand;

2.      The Minister is an apostle of consumption of Nigerian Food;

3.      Adesina has the greatest passion for Nigerian agriculture and he has been pursuing the goal of self sufficiency in rice production since his first day in office;

4.      A lot of hard work had gone into local rice industry development which has achieved great impact in terms of improved local production capacity & productivity; reduction in rice import bill; increased local and foreign investment in rice production and processing;

5.      A good number of locally produced, processed and branded rice are now in Nigerian markets.

Nigerian Rice Brands

6. Adesina that i know, is a man of impeccable character and has been one of the most transparent and honest public officer that i have ever come across. He is a man of contentment and who has never demonstrated any corruptive tendency. It will therefore be very difficult to find him in such messy and fraudulent practice.

Therefore, in response to the allegation, Adesina came out tell the story to the Lawmakers to enable the public understand the true position of things and the role of each category of stakeholders.

Climate change: a challenge to the human survival.

Gov. B. R Fashola

   Climate change is a phenomenon that has remained a major challenge to human survival and will therefore require an all encompassing strategy to mitigate it. Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola stated this at the 7th climate change summit in Lagos last week. He disclosed that different policies have been put in place by successive administrations in the State to ensure a sustainable environment & livelihood; including the Eko Atlantic project initiated by the State former governor, Senator Bola Tinubu. 

 

Lagos Flood

Specific efforts made to combat climate change and militate against it effect include the tree planting programme, establishment of climate change Club in schools, advocacy, better waste management and improved transportation system.   The project was aimed at curbing the loss of properties and destruction of public infrastructures due to the effect of the phenomenon.

Gas Polution

           Others are the conservation option, shoreline protection, arrangement construction dredging etc. Governor Fashola stated that the evolution of a comprehensive climate change policy is the key success of the initiative and informed the gathering that the review of the urban plant & physical dew and building code is one part of the effort being made to promote resilient to climate change and ensure friendly habitat.
The Lagos island independent power plant, Lekki independent power plant, mainland independent and Alausa independent power plants have all cut down the use of diesel generator, thereby reducing carbon emission into the environment.

Indiscriminate slaughtering of animal: Lagos set to regulate the act.

Gov. Raji Fashola

The Lagos state government will no longer tolerate the indiscriminate slaughtering of animals just anywhere as it's been practiced now. The state is repositioning the abattoir arrangement in the state to make the activities more hygienic than the way it is being done now, on filthy platforms. 

Local Abbattoir

This was made known by Prince Gbolahan Lawal, the State Commissioner for Agriculture & cooperatives during the inauguration of 10-days training for 25 veterinary officers in Lagos. He said that the policy will also boost the capacities of veterinary Doctors and Officers for the implementation of the policy and effective monitoring and inspection of the abattoirs.

Modern Abattoir

The Train the Trainers programme was carried out in conjunction with PWC consultant UK. Speaking at the event, the Managing Director of PWC Consultancy, Kate Okafor also advised the trainees to be ready for change, away from the usual unhygienic meat supply practices and bring about the desired change in the abattoir management in the State.

Building Cassava Industry National Platform: IDH-Grow Africa

      

            

      As part of the efforts of the Sustainable Trade Initiative, (IDH) and Grow Africa to promote cassava industry in Africa, the two organizations have jointly carried out different programmes across Africa to bring all the stakeholders together on the same platform. While IDH is a private organization funded by Swiss, Dutch and Danish governments and gives grant to companies that work with small holder farmers, Grow Africa is an offshoot of the World Economic Forum with the objective of creating wealth in Africa. The pilot intervention on cassava will be in Nigeria, Ghana and Mozambique.

       Developing the national cassava platform is one of the major steps in actualizing the dream of transforming the industrial cassava value chain. The inauguration of the Nigeria national platform which is a follow up to the earlier meeting held by the working group, is taking place today, 22^nd

Medium Scale HQCF Plant

April 2015. The national platform is expected to be set up in the three African countries and targets the medium to large scale cassava processors who are working directly with small scale farmers. The Examples of the member companies on the platform are Niji Lukas Foods, Eagleson & Nico Concepts Cassava Flour, Honeywell Flour Mills, Psaltry International Starch Company, C: AVA 11, FMARD, Jubili Agro-Chemicals, Solidaridad Network, Dadtco Cassava Flour, Business Innovation Facility of UK/DFID, Notore Fertilizer Company, Catholic Relief Group, Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi, (FIIRO), TAC, Allied Atlantic Distilleries Limited, (AADL) and others.

The objectives of the Platform include:

·         Share experiences and learnings in non-competitive areas to address constraints in the relatively new sector.

·         Align private sector interest (secure value chains) and public interest (poverty reduction, economic growth, environmental stewardship).

·          Facilitate partners to conduct advocacy and to take action to address common issues.

The meeting is expected to look at other cross cutting issues which can be collectively addressed for the progress of the industry.

Nigerian Agricultural Development: learning to eat what we produce and produce what we will eat-a case of Nigerian Rice.

Dr. Akin Adesina with Ebony Rice

Rice Farm in Kebbi

The sustainability of Nigeria Agriculture is germane to the drive  towards food self-sufficiency. Food insecurity and poverty are two problems globally recognized as the bane of development and global peace, especially in Africa with greater percentage of under nourished and the poor. Nigeria today is confronted with the challenge with  huge import bill of feeding over 172 million people.

Before the advent of the current administration, the import bill on rice, wheat and sugar alone was $6.89 billion; good money that should have gone into some other public projects and infrastructures.

Umza in Kano, Danmodi in Jigawa and Miva from Benue

The sustained food import bill of a population like that of Nigeria will not do the country any good because it erodes the substantial portion of the foreign reserve and employment opportunities are exported to other countries. No nation has ever survived on food importation and neither will that be a good driver for any economic growth; especially in a country with very great potentials to feed her people.

LCCI Advices President-elect to give greater attention to Agriculture

           The Agricultural Group of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry has appealed to the President elect, Gen. Muhammad Buhari to put agriculture in the front burner of his administration. This will boost the current efforts on food production and improve the level of food security. The group, through its Chairman, Mr. Wale Oyekoya made this known at a briefing in Lagos recently, where the president-elect was advised to review the current agricultural programmes and continue implementing those policies that are outstanding . The Chairman lamented the failure of many laudable agricultural policies which is mostly due to inadequate funding and corruption. He recalled the many policies and programmes by successive administrations and how sadly they never achieved the objective due systemic corruption and poor funding. Mr. Oyekoya listed some of the agricultural programmes such as the Agricultural Transformation Agenda, (ATA); Nigeria Incentive based Risk Sharing Agricultural Lending, (NIRSAL); Commercial Agricultural Programme, (CAP); Agricultural Credit Scheme amongst others; he said all these are devoid of effective implementation, which the President correct or improved upon.