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HarvestPlus: Vit-A Cassava Crusade Reaches 106,000 Farmers By Fabian Odum HE battle against ‘Hidden Hunger’ using T the growing of Vit-A fortified cassava scored more points in 2013, with a reach to 106,000 farmers as against the initial target of 100,000 farmers. These farmers cultivated a land area of 654 hectares in 272 villages across 14 states with average cassava stem yield increase from 200 bundles to 400 on-farm, and to 1,000 on-station. Aside the rural farmers, who are reaping nutritional and economic benefits of this investment, 50 private sector organisations have come on board the ‘special yellow cassava’ platform. Besides, state, local governments, non governmental organisations, and other development partners have been involved in the task of getting more farmers to grow the crop. HarvestPlus Country Manager, Paul Ilona revealed these at a media interactive meet for a 2013 review and work in progress for 2014 at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Oyo State, midweek. With a running theme, ‘Better crops, better nutrition,’ Ilona said HarvestPlus has been at the forefront of tackling improper nutrition apply the tool of bio-fortification to staple crops right from the farm. The target for the preceding year, according to Ilona is to add value to Vit-A cassava, making it more it more acceptable for food and income generation for Nigeria’s teeming population in the fight against ‘hidden hunger.’ Hidden Hunger, also known as micronutrient deficiency, is a major public health prob-
Products from processed Vit-A cassava on display at HarvestPlus meet at IITA during the week. lem in developing countries caused by lack of essential vitamins and minerals like vitamin A, zinc, iron or iodine in the diet. The result would be that children may be stunted in growth, have poor night vision or be plagued by frequent illness. Even in adults,
IITA DG Urges Governments To Tap Agriculture For Job Creation HE Director General of the International T Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Dr. Nteranya Sanginga has called on governments to make use of the potential in agriculture to create wealth and jobs. Addressing stakeholders at the Oyo State Economic Summit, the DG, who was represented by Dr. Kenton Dashiell, Deputy Director General for Partnerships & Capacity Development said there were opportunities for the youth to start small businesses in seed production, input supply, weed control, and processing, among others. Represented by Sanginga explained that the youth could also be farmers and use modern methods that reduce the labor, raise yields, and increase income. Citing the example of the IITA Youth Agripreneurs model, Sanginga said that there was the need to change the mindset of the youth. He explained that the Youth Agripreneurs project – the first of its kind in the CGIAR—
engages young people from various educational disciplines and through mentoring and training transforms them into agripreneurs. He added that making agriculture a business is at the core of the program. The economic summit attracted industrialists including the Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria, Oba Otudeko; the Chairman, Nigerian Economic Summit Group and Executive Chairman, Philips Consulting, Mr. Foluso Philips; and the Director General of Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dr. Joseph Odumodu. The Governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi, in his welcome address said the State was ready to offer incentives and partnership to investors willing to explore opportunities in the agricultural and industrial sectors. He solicited more synergies from other foreign bodies in the human capital development of the state.
there may be recurring illness and easily prone to fatigue. World health statistics show that one in three people in developing countries like Nigeria suffer hidden hunger, which increases their vulnerability to infection, birth defects, and impaired development. Ilona says it is cheaper for the rural poor to source micro-nutrients from common staples like cassava, maize and millet among others than more expensive foods that are not in line with their daily diet.
Food Production Efforts To Consider Climate Change Impact By Kamal Tayo Oropo OUNTRIES need to shift to more sustainC able food systems, stepping up action to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told participants at the seventh Forum on Agriculture in the Kingdom of Morocco. Climate change, according to Graziano da Silva, has the potential to reconfigure the planet’s food production scenario. It reintroduced “an element of uncertainty” after decades in which hunger was caused more by a lack of access to the means to produce or purchase food, rather than insufficient supplies globally. The world’s poorest are particularly vulnerable. Not only do they have fewer means to react, but they also tend to live in already marginal production areas, where the impact of climate change in agricultural production is felt to an even greater extent. He pointed to the recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which reflected these concerns and called for urgent action. The Director-General also spoke about family farming as a tool for rural development and stability, pointing out that the United Nations had declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming. He pointed out that climate change was a challenge that both large, modernised family farms and small-scale family farmers would need to face. Climate change is an issue that cuts across a broad range of development priorities, including ending hunger, supporting sustainable production, reducing rural poverty, improving food markets and building resilience. Graziano da Silva noted that some 500 million family farms account for about 80 per cent of the world’s holdings, yet also include many of the most vulnerable families globally.
Grazing Reserves Will Boost National Security – Agric Minister HE Minister of Agriculture and Rural T Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has stated that aside from the tremendous benefits of rapidly growing the livestock sector, creating thousands of jobs and raising national economic output, the establishment and effective management of grazing reserves will reduce frequent herder-farmer and other forms of communal clashes in the country to the barest minimum. The Minister made the assertion while inaugurating an inter-ministerial technical committee tasked with working out modalities for mapping and resuscitating 415 existing grazing reserves and stock routes spread across the country. The Ministers of Environment, Works, Interior, Water Resources, Science and Technology as well as National Planning are members of the inter-ministerial/government committee headed by the Agric Minister, with commissioners of agriculture of all 19 States of North-Central, North-East and North-West geo-Political Zones as well as some adjoining States. Adesina gave a rundown of major underlying factors heightening herder-farmer clashes, which are now assuming strife proportions in the country. Among these are high population growth and the resulting need to feed more mouths, which in itself creates the need for more farmlands, population change induced rural – urban migration, increase in the number of livestock herds (19 million cows, 45 million sheep and 35 million goats) with the need to feed them on ever shrinking grazers leading to incursions into farmlands by herders. Others are the continued practice of itinerant grazing of livestock instead of rearing them on established grazers and consequent overrunning of farms every now and then, and effects of climate change on the environment in the form of desertification and desiccation. Positing that these causative factors did not in themselves constitute enough reasons for the prevalence and rising incidence of herder-farmer and other communal clashes in the country, the Agric Minister argued that only 141 of the available 415 grazing reserves around the country are mapped and gazetted. Even then, he expressed doubt if any of the mapped and gazetted reserves was being effectively managed to realise the objective for creating them. Adesina, therefore disclosed that it was to address these inadequacies with a view to optimising them that President Jonathan directed the establishment of the technical committee with the active commitment and involvement of all stakeholders, including relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as States and Local Governments, with a mandate to develop maps and inventory existing facilities for effectively utilizing them.
Varsity Teacher Lists Ways Of Attaining Food Security From Charles Ogugbuaja, Owerri ORRIED by the rate of food insufficiency W and policy on Agriculture in the country, a don in the School of Agriculture and Agricultural Technology at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, Prof. Christopher Chiedozie Eze, regretted the low agricultural yield in the country despite various agricultural policies and programmes put in place by the successive governments. The Professor of Agricultural Economics, who spoke on “Agricultural Finance: Panacea for Agricultural and Rural Development” at the 24th Inaugural Lecture, opined that lip service to the sector by the government at all levels must stop, while land and financial assistance must be given to famers and those in the field. Eze, also a lawyer, regretted that all the various programmes put in place in that regard by the past governments, such as Peoples Bank, Community banks, Family Support Programme, Small Scale Industrialisation, Directorate for Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure, Better Life programme, banking schemes among other integrated and rural development strategy, some have “left the communities worse off.” According to him, government must immediately commence to address poor storage facilities, processing, power supply and transportation and post harvest losses issues. He also identified smallness in cultivable lands for farmers as a major factor militating against the growth in agriculture, in view of the growing population, urbanisation and industrialisation.