Soil degradation costs African farmers $68bn yearly

Soil degradation holds back African farmers, costing them $68 billion annually and threatening to stall vital food production, Sir Gordon Conway, director of the group Agriculture for Impact and a professor at Imperial College London, said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation on Thursday.

“The problem is certainly getting worse,” Sir Gordon Conway said.  “Poor farmers don’t have the money, time or labour to prevent degradation or improve their soils,” Conway said. “If they don’t have land tenure, there is no incentive to invest in improving their farms.”

Climate change, the depletion of mineral nutrients, desertification, improper use

Lagos empowers 3,149 artisans in agric business

Lagos state Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives said a total of 3, 149 people in agricultural value chain businesses in four local government areas of the state have benefitted from its empowerment programmes.

The State Commissioner for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Prince Gbolahun Lawal, who disclosed this, said the beneficiaries were given equipment and input like brand new outboard engines, generating sets, garri processing machines, grinders, as well as fish feed, pig meals and body gears.

“At the last count, the empowerment programme had touched more than

Dangote Farms begins hybrid tomatoes production in Kano

Dangote Farms have started a pilot hybrid tomatoes production in Kano to meet the demand of it’s tomatoes processing plants in the state, its Managing Director, Alhaji Abdulhamid Kaita, disclosed on Friday.

Kaita told newsmen at the end of a two-day stakeholders’ forum on tomatoes value chain in Kano that the company had also introduced the hybrid seedlings to farmers.

He said the farmers, however, insisted that the seedlings be tried by the company’s farm before they could patronise it.

He noted that

Nigeria’s agriculture records $1.6bn investments in two years via rice production

The Nigerian agricultural sector has witnessed increased tempo of both domestic and foreign investments amounting to $1.6 billion in the past two and half years, Akinwunmi Adesina, minister of agriculture and rural development, has said.

This is as a result of the proactive and strategic reforms being undertaken to upscale the country’s rice value chain through the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) of the Federal Government’s agricultural transformation agenda (ATA).

Adesina made the disclosure on Monday while

SON to review cassava flour standard to benefit SMEs

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) on Thursday said that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) would play major role in the newly drafted standards for cassava products in the country.

Dr Joseph Odumodu, the Director General of SON, said this in Lagos at the conclusion of  the work of a technical committee set to up to elaborate and review standards of cassava products.

“It was not the first time SON is elaborating standards on cassava products. It was just a combination of review and elaboration of new ones,” he said.

Odumodu, who was represented by Mr Louis Njoku, Head of Laboratory in SON, said that cassava had been adopted by the African Union as one of its focal crops.

He said that standardisation of cassava bread was on the agenda of the African Regional Organisation for Standardisation Agenda.

“The benefits of our deliberations today go beyond Nigeria and will

Agric minister says cocoa crop to more than double

Nigeria’s cocoa production is expected to more than double within three years after farmers were supplied with better-yielding seeds, Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources Akinwunmi Ayo Adesina said.

Nigeria has given farmers hybrid seedlings to boost yields fivefold, Adesina said in a Sept. 14 interview with Bloomberg Television Africa in Abuja, the capital.

“In another 2 1/2 to 3 years you’re going to see a huge bump in the production of cocoa,” the minister said. “We expect that within a couple of years you will see that jump to 800,000 metric tons” a year.

Nigeria is the world’s fourth-largest cocoa producer behind Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia, according to the London-based International Cocoa Organization. Nigeria’s production was 240,000 tons this season, according to the organization. The minister estimated it at

Agricultural transformation: Africa urged to talk collectively

This year is dedicated by the African Union to the cause of food security and Agriculture, so it was not surprising that a spirited gathering of more than 1,000 agriculture officials, farmers, entrepreneurs, scientists, civil society organizations and pioneers in agribusiness representing 60 countries – met at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Abba, Ethiopia for four days recently.

They all met at the 2014 African Green Revolution Forum put together by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), the African Union, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) are among others.

AGRF also happened to be the first multi-stakeholder gathering in response to the Declaration and call to Action by Heads of States and Governments during the July 2014 AU Summit.

In the Declaration, African Heads of State called for the

Adesina: Nigeria Recorded Rise in Food Production

Nigeria will continue to record a rise in food output as the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, yesterday disclosed that the country recorded a growth in the food production last year to the tune of eight million metric tonnes over 2012 figures.

The figure, according to him, “represents over 70 per cent growth of the target set for 2015 by government”. He made the statement while declaring open the Third NIAS-ASAN joint annual meeting held at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan.

He spoke at the event where new members of the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science (NIAS) were inducted.

Adesina described it as significant because “it marks yet another major milestone in our drive to modernise agriculture and ensure that

Potentials of five major sectors of the Nigerian Economy

Agriculture contributed 41.84 percent to Nigeria’s GDP in 2009, and employs about 70percent of its workforce. Investing in profitable, high growth and sustainable agribusiness in Nigeria is seen as a way to drive youth employment.

Nigeria is blessed with an agriculture friendly climate, coastal and marine resources of over 960 kilometres of shoreline, expansive rivers and lakes covering 120,000 square kilometres and a large consumer market.

“The potential for growth is quite remarkable and agriculture, in itself, is a major contributor to the national Gross Domestic Product. Research shows that Nigeria has over 80 million hectares of arable land. This accounts for about 23 percent of arable land across all of West Africa. Thus, in terms of production, the potential for West Africa to leap forward is immense as the region possesses not only land, but the lowest levels of irrigation in the world,” said Kola Masha, Managing director, Doreo Partners.

He also noted that