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Dr. Nasiru Mohammed, Director-General, National Directorate of Employment (NDE), has said efforts are underway to train 30 unemployed young persons in agricultural production in a bid to make them self-dependent. Mohammed disclosed this during the opening ceremony/orientation of the Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme organized by the Rural Employment Promotion Department of the NDE for beneficiaries at the Municipal Hall in Abakaliki Local Government Area of the state. He added that President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision for agriculture involves working with key stakeholders to build an agric business economy capable of delivering sustained prosperity by meeting domestic food security goals and job creation. Represented by Mr. Marcel Igboanude, Ebonyi State Coordinator for NDE, the Director General explained that the primary objective of the scheme was to ensure that young people are gainfully employed through massive job creation in agriculture. Acc

Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara has called for stricter enforcement of the ban on poultry imports into the country to boost the nation’s economy.   Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara Ahmed made the call last week in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, while declaring open a one-day seminar organised by Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) on “Impact of smuggled Poultry products on the economy and health of Nigerians”. The governor said “There is urgent need to stem the importation of frozen poultry to protect as well promoting Nigeria’s poultry sector, environmental and health implications of imported meat are no less grave. “Imported frozen turkey and chicken are unwholesome meat, which have long term, devastating effects on the health of consumers.” The governor added that imported frozen meat accounted for over $2.5 billion in foreign exchange and a loss of more than one million jobs opportunities annually. Ahmed also said Nigeria’s poultry sector is current

Senate President Bukola Saraki has commended Mr. Olusegun Arowolo, a 66-year-old Germany-based Nigerian engineer, for inventing a cocoa pod breaking machine that can break 30,000 cocoa pods in one hour, the first ever in the world.   Senate President Bukola Saraki  Saraki who gave the commendation last week in Abuja at the public demonstration of the machine known as Gideon Cocoa Pod Breaking Machine challenged the Nigerian youth to embrace technology and deploy the skills to promote commercial agriculture in the country. The Senate President, who was represented by Senator Abdullahi Adamu, Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, noted that the Federal Government is committed to the revival of the economy through the non-oil sector, particularly through agriculture. He said agricultural mechanisation would encourage the youth to participate in crop growing, as it would reduce the stress and drudgery associated with current methods of farming, adding that technologic

The Federal Government will commence the establishment of cattle colonies next week in states that show interest in a major step to discourage open grazing. Chief Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said open grazing was posing serious challenges and it “is not too efficient for the cattle’’. Ogbeh described open grazing as a `torture’ to cattle which usually do not enjoy long distance walks. He disclosed this during a visit to the Agriculture and Veterinary Complex of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria last week. “It doesn’t allow us to harvest milk; the cows are not well fed. What is going on is almost torture to animals. “If we can create a new environment for cattle, give them what they need, protect them from rustlers, the herdsmen will quickly discover that they are making far more money than what they are doing now,’’ he said. Ogbeh noted that the National Economic Council has set up a 10-member committee comprising the Vice Presid

The technical committee on Nigeria Yam Export Programme is working with the University of Agriculture, Umudike and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to produce seed yams for export. The committee was charged with the responsibilities of finding markets for Nigerian yams in the world and providing market information on weekly prices of yam at the major marketing centres abroad. Speaking in Lagos, Prof. Simon Irtwang, chairman of the committee, disclosed that the seed yams would be given to farmers to plant exclusively for export. “One of the challenges with the flag-off of yams exported in June 2017 was that the yams were exposed to the sun before being selected for export. Once yams are exposed in the sun for long, the process of decay sets in gradually. “With special seed yams, the structures to have a good quality of seed yams for export will be set in motion. This will help and ensure that future yam exports withstand the temperatures in a

African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched the Junior Art Contest in Nigeria to promote the potential of agriculture to secondary school children as part of its ‘Farming is Cool’ initiative. The aim is to engender a generational shift in agriculture on the continent and ensure that Africa is able to feed itself and eradicate malnutrition by 2025. Mr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of AfDB, will present prizes to the three winners from the month-long contest at the commissioning of the Nigeria office building. The winners will receive partial scholarships of one million Naira, half a million Naira and N250,000 as first, second and third place prizes, respectively. “The art competition was conducted to sow a seed of awareness in young minds of the significance and potential of agriculture in the development of a nation’s economy. The Farming is Cool campaign strives to flip the script on farming as a last resort by emphasizing and promoting it as a viable wealth-creation o

Muhammadu Sanusi II, Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II, Emir of Kano, has charged the management of Sterling Bank to focus more on agriculture financing in support of the Federal Government’s goals of diversifying the economy to address the country’s almost total dependence on proceeds from the oil and gas sector. Sanusi who is also a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) advised the bank to build on its pioneering work in Non-Interest Banking (NIB) by focusing on the agriculture sector. He said this while delivering a keynote address at a one-day conference organized by Sterling Bank on Non-Interest Banking in Kano recently. In 2017, Sterling Bank Plc won the Best Bank in Support of Agriculture Award at the Business Day Banking Awards and Agric Bank of the Year 2017 at the Nigeria Agriculture Awards Committee. The bank also won the Best Agric Finance Bank of the Year 2016 from the Zamfara branch of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Best Performing Ba

As part of its focus on taking business-driven agriculture to the grassroots, the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture (NIRSAL) is deploying an innovative nation-wide field structure to support 225,000 farmers under the CBN Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP). The structure, known as the Project Monitoring Reporting and Remediation Office, has units located in each state and the Federal Capital. The PMROs are designed to support NIRSAL’s core mandate of making agriculture more attractive for private sector investment by de-risking the agricultural value chain. Among other functions, they will provide rigorous monitoring and supervision of NIRSAL facilitated agriculture projects to improve successful outcomes. NIRSAL which the Central Bank appointed an implementation partner in the Anchor Borrowers Programme, is deploying the PMROs to support an initial number of about 225,000 farmers throughout the country under the programme. The 225,000 farmer

The Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have stepped up efforts to assist farmers and alleviate hunger in Nigeria and Congo. In north-eastern Nigeria, hunger has considerably declined for the first time since the Boko Haram crisis. According to the latest Cadre Harmonise food security analysis, the number of people living in the three states affected by violence who are facing acute hunger has halved since last August from 5.2 million to 2.6 million. The analysis attributed this to an overall improved security situation and the ramping up of humanitarian and longer-term livelihoods assistance by the Nigerian government and its partners. FAO has helped farmers in the area by providing cowpea, maize, millet, sorghum, vegetable seeds and fertilises to one million people - internally displaced people, returned refugees and host communities - to get them through the last rainy season which ended in September 2017. Food stocks b

Nigeria has set a target of about 5,760 tonnes of yams for export in 2018 as part of a programme to boost yam export and increase the country’s foreign exchange earnings through agriculture, the Technical Committee on Nigeria Yam Export Programme has said. Professor Simon Irtwange, Chairman of the committee, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja said requests for the monthly supply of five containers has already been received from the United States which amounted to 120 tonnes of yams monthly and 1,440 tonnes of yams in a year. He said, “If everything works out well, the US authorities say they will need about five containers every month and one container contains 24 tonnes of yams. We are trying to aggregate the demand from other countries; so by the time we put everything together, we should be thinking of exporting about 20 containers of yams on a monthly basis.” Going by this projection, the committee hopes to export a total of 480 tonnes of yams every month which t