Agriculture with Jimoh

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) said on Tuesday that it will drive agriculture through   its Cooperative Society in order to make farmers have easy access to loans. Mr Adeola Elliott, the Chairman of the LCCI Agric and Agro-Allied Group, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos. According to him, the Cooperative Society is part of the chamber’s integrated Agriculture Project, as it wants all hands to be on deck, to fast track agriculture in the country. ``We have small farm holders scattered all over and they do not want to remain small farm holders all their lives. ``They are still small farm holders because their capacity to expand is limited and it is difficult for even banks to give loans to small farm holders. ``The Cooperative Society intends to bring all farmers under one umbrella and yet operate independently. ``As farmers become members of the LCCI Agric and Agro Allied Group and the Cooperative Society, th...

 Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers has said that his administration will promote commercial agriculture to create employment opportunities for youths. Wike said this while receiving the Port Harcourt Branch Controller of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Kazeem Adekunle-Alaka, in Port-Harcourt on Tuesday. The governor added that the government focused on oil palm and cassava production as the areas of investment. He said that massive investment in agriculture would further develop the state's economy and enhance food security. Wike used the occasion to commend the CBN for its firmness and consistency in the application of the nation’s monetary policies. ``The current attitude of the CBN toward monetary policy issues has put to rest the policy somersaults’ witnessed in the past. ``I commend the CBN governor and the bank’s management for being firm in the application of economic policies, this to me is a good omen for the country,’’ he said. Wike identified the Bank Verifi...

The Hon. Minister , Chief Audu I.Ogbeh, has promised to send no fewer than 50 threshers to Kebbi dry season farmers to help them during this harvesting season, to take off the drudgery associated with post-harvest operations on the farms. The minister made this promise when the Deputy Governor of Kebbi State, Col. Samaila Yombe Dabai (retd), paid him a courtesy call in his office in Abuja on Monday.   The visit came on the heels of the assessment visit on Anchor Borrowers’ support programme for Kebbi farmers, which began towards the end of 2015. The farmers, mostly rice and wheat farmers, ordinarily use drums and hands to thresh their harvests, mostly on the floor or open ground, leading to contamination with stones. By the Minister’s gestures, the problems associated with manual threshing will be eliminated and the quality of produce enhanced. The Minister noted that Kebbi farmers may need something between 400 to 500 threshers. “We are designing them specially,” h...

 The Emir of Pindiga, Alhaji Mohammed Seyoji, has appealed to government at all levels to make fertiliser available and at affordable price for the farmers for the planting seasons. The Emir made the appeal in Pindiga community, Akko Local Government Area of Gombe, on Monday, while addressing farmers in the community ahead the 2016 planting season. He said that making fertilisers available is one of the ways to achieve a sustainable food production in the country. The monarch said that the current situation in the country is not about advising farmers to go to the farm, but providing the necessary farm inputs to encourage them. According to him, it is only in Nigeria that fertiliser is been distributed to farmers at specific period. "Since this administration is committed to reviving Agriculture, let them meet the expectations of farmers, while they are ready to go back to the farm, "he said. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Pindiga communit...

 Kano State Government on Monday said it had commenced the construction of 17.8 kilometer Galinja-Kauran Mata-Gora road in Madobi Local Government Area for easy access to farms. The Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Alhaji Nasiru Yusuf, disclosed this in a statement in Kano. The statement, signed by the Public Relations Officer of the ministry, Maikudi Mohammed, said the project would be constructed by Kano State Commercial Agricultural Development Project (CADP) and the World Bank. The commissioner said the project would assist farmers in transporting farm produce as well as enhance other agricultural activities in the area. Yusuf urged contractors handling the project to abide by the rules of the contract agreement for speedy completion of the project. He said the state government would continue to provide amenities in the rural areas to enhance activities in the agricultural sector. 

 An agronomist, Mr Aminu Ismail, has advised farmers in the country to use organic fertiliser to increase soil fertility. Organic fertiliser is the fertiliser derived from animal matter, human excreta or vegetable matter, while inorganic fertiliser comes in many different forms, such as ammonium nitrate, potassium nitrate, calcium nitrate and urea. Inorganic fertiliser contains high levels of nitrogen, one of the most vital nutrients for plant growth. Ismail gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja. He said that organic fertiliser would help reduce the dependence on all types of inorganic fertiliser. ``All over the world, our soil in Africa is among the oldest; if you want to make sure that a soil is productive, you should apply a tonic. ``The micro-nutrient is like a tonic; if you combined it with organic fertiliser like poultry manure or cow dung, that is all. ``You do not need anything else because it is fol...

New tech allows for rapid and detailed assessments of vulnerable farmlands 25 April 2016  - In a bid to stay ahead of the negative impacts of climate change, floods and typhoons on food security, the Government of the Philippines and FAO have started using unmanned aerial drones to assess where farmlands are most at risk from natural disasters and quickly assess damages after they strike. Under a pilot phase of the still-fledgling project funded by   the Ministry of Agriculture of the Philippines and the FAO, two drones have already been sent soaring over the Philippines provinces that have been affected by the current El Niño. Some 25 FAO and government technical experts are ready to be deployed across the archipelago to support drone missions. They were recently trained over three weeks on how to fly the drones and learned a range of remote aerial assessment methods. The drones are equipped with navigation and photogrammetric equipment that can generate detailed ...