The Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs Aisha Abubakar has said that the Federal Government would exploit potential in the cotton sector by empowering producers to enhance their productivity. Speaking at the 16th African Cotton Association (ACA) Annual International Congress in Abuja on Thursday, she stressed that cotton was important to the economic development of not only the individual producing countries but also to the entire African continent cannot be over emphasised. Abubakar said that in Africa, the sector provided a means of livelihood to millions of smallholder farmers, whose economic lives revolved around the production, processing, transportation,…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
The WFP Country Representative of the World Food Programme (WFP), Myrta Kaulard has said that the Programme would give food assistance to 1.5 million Nigerians in 2018. Speaking in Abuja on Thursday, she said that from 2017 to date WFP had spent 126 million dollars to give food assistance in various forms to 1.1 million people in the sixteen northern states of Nigeria. Naming the as Bauchi, Benue, Gombe, Jigawa, Plateau, Niger, Kebbi, Katsina, Kaduna, Taraba, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa, Kaulard said that the number of the affected people would be increased during the lean season between June and…
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) have warned against impending food shortage that could affect 3.8 million people in 16 northern states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The states include Bauchi, Benue, Gombe, Jigawa, Plateau, Niger, Kebbi, Katsina, Kaduna, Taraba, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Yobe, Borno and Adamawa. The agencies issued the warning on Thursday in Abuja at a stakeholders meeting for the presentation of the results of the March 2018 Cadre Harmonisé (CH) analysis of food and security situation in Nigeria. The CH report said that judging from the current situation in the…
President Muhammadu Buhari says he will soon inaugurate a National Food Security Council aimed at achieving the nation’s quest for food security, and to ensure efficiency in the agricultural sector of the economy. He said members of the council will include governors, ministers, security agencies and key stakeholders across the entire agricultural segments of farming, fisheries and livestock management. The President, who made this known when he met with Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, Rice Millers Association and Rice Distributors, including the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefile and Governors of Jigawa and Kebbi, Abubakar Badaru and Atiku Bagudu respectively, said…
This is the fourth post of Farming First’s #FillTheGap campaign to highlight the gender gap facing rural women working in agriculture. As a young woman growing up in Northern Uganda, tradition didn’t allow Nancy Adong, 26, to own land, only to farm on her husband’s family’s land and only then with his permission. Her situation is far from uncommon, presenting an immediate disadvantage for millions of rural women, who work in agriculture in greater numbers than men. When Nancy did get permission to farm and harvest from the family land, there was always a challenge over control of the profits.…
AGCO, a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment, and its partners celebrated the launch of the new AGCO Agribusiness Qualification (AAQ) at Strathmore University in Kenya on 6 March 2018. Twenty students have been enrolled on this brand-new program which is focused on developing the skills, leadership and strategic expertise to drive African agricultural prosperity. The AAQ is a joint effort between AGCO, Strathmore Business School (SBS) in Nairobi, Harper Adams University in the UK and Kenya-based The Bridge Africa which runs programs to prepare graduates for employment. The qualification delivers an accredited two-year agribusiness program for students aged…
A Principal Investigator and Head of Systems Virology at the Department of Laboratory Science, Lund University, Sweden, Dr. Joakim Esbjornsson has recently obtained a 12-month, 146 000 SEK (approximately R211,500.00) grant from the Swedish Foundation for International Co-operation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) to enhance collaboration between Lund University, the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, South Africa as well as the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Kilifi, Kenya for a study entitled, “Hyperacute HIV-1 Infection – Towards a Functional HIV-1 Cure or Vaccine.” “STINT’s support will enable us to take the first formal steps towards a close…
The potential of a method of replacing female genital mutilation as an initiation into womanhood with culturally sensitive alternatives is to be explored. The University of Leicester is hosting a workshop on ‘Alternative Rites of Passage: Their role in anti-FGM work in Africa’ on 9 March. Organised by the Institute for Advanced Studies, the workshop coincides with the University’s week-long celebration of International Women’s Day. Alternative rites of passage, or ARP, is touted by NGOs and international donors as an alternative to female initiation into womanhood but without female genital mutilation/cutting. In these ceremonies and the instruction that usually precedes…
By Maggie Kamau-Biruri After more than a decade of steady decline, world hunger is again on the rise, according to a 2017 report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. As the need to address growing malnutrition rates grows more pressing, global leaders tackling this challenge must consider engaging in public, private and government partnerships to maximize the reach of critical nutrition programs. One of the most common forms of malnutrition plaguing the world’s population is micronutrient deficiency, a phenomenon that occurs when people may have enough to eat but lack the micronutrients that are critical to living healthy and…