Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Initiative with Ethiopia aims to boost opportunities for rural youth

Initiative with Ethiopia aims to boost opportunities for rural youth / Italy-funded project focuses on policies aimed at addressing the underlying causes of economic mobility

FAO and the government of Ethiopia today signed a partnership agreement which aims to reduce youth mobility caused by poverty, through innovative policies that will create jobs and business opportunities for young people in the agricultural sector and in rural areas more broadly.

The two-year project is being supported with funds provided by the Italian government and aims to obtain a better understanding of the dynamics that lead rural people – youth in particular – to leave their homes and seek employment elsewhere.

The improved evidence on rural migration trends and impacts will help policy-makers, improve agricultural and rural development policies in order to increase employment opportunities, and make rural areas more attractive to young people.

The total contribution by the Italian government amounts to $2.5 million for the project as a whole, which includes a similar initiative with Tunisia. The partnership agreement with the Tunisian government is set to be signed at a later stage.

The project will further provide support to strengthen capacities of Ministries of Agriculture, Youth, Labour and Vocational Training in Ethiopia in the design and implementation of such policies. Representatives of the private sector and civil society organizations will also be supported and their capacities strengthened to engage in the development of relevant policies and programmes.

Initiatives geared towards civil society will aim at empowering producer organizations, youth groups and migrants’ networks in particular.

The partnership agreement was signed by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ethiopia, Tefera Derebrew and FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, at an event during the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development.

“Identifying critical entry points of this project and aligning it with our national policies and strategies, will help to address poverty issues in rural areas and ensure the successful implementation of this project about rural jobs for youth,” said Minister Derebrew.

Graziano da Silva said: “In the next decades, demographic trends, globalization, inequality, and climate change are likely to further increase migration pressures both within and across countries. Distress economic migration is particularly high among the rural youth.”

“Ethiopia faces major youth and migration challenge, and is at the forefront in efforts to transform its agricultural sector and rural areas towards more inclusive and job-rich pathways of development,” the FAO Director-General added.

Also present at the signing ceremony was the Ambassador of Italy in Ethiopia, Giuseppe Mistretta whose country is providing the critical resources to fund the programme. Italy has a keen interest in youth employment issues throughout the world and is placing major emphasis on this area in its development programmes.

Earlier this week Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi, speaking at the The 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, outlined his government’s intention to step up co-operation efforts with African countries.

“The real challenge for us is not only to save human lives…the real challenge is to create jobs here, to create a new perspective of hope. People are escaping from a condition of poverty, of need, of conflict, of persecution, people are looking for a better future,” Renzi added.

“We need to address the root causes that force migrants to leave their families. We must invest in Africa,” the Italian Prime Minister said. “We must absolutely invest in agriculture…in food … in education, creating jobs to fight economic poverty.

http://africanbrains.net/

What It’ll Take To Get African Youth Interested In Agriculture

Source: Google Search

The African Development Bank, Africa’s biggest lending institution, recently elected a new leader: Akinwumi Adesina.

The former Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria, Adesina led an agricultural transformation in his country. Among Adesina’s revolutionary acts was the launch of a program to develop 750,000 young entrepreneurs—Nagropreneurs—in agriculture.

In his new position, Adesina will have the opportunity to promote similar reforms across Africa.

What will it take to achieve this?

Firstly, aspiring agri-preneurs need role models, and their stories need to be widely promoted. One such role model is 27-year-old Senai Wolderfael, featured in Forbes Magazine as one of the 30 most promising young entrepreneurs in Africa. He saw a gap in the market for exporting Ethiopian spice blends to Ethiopians living abroad and he capitalized on it. Today, he is a thriving agri-prenuer.

Secondly, it will take collaborations, investment, training, and mentoring to empower the youth with the skills and resources that will allow them to develop and own agribusinesses.

Take for instance, financing. It is crucial to the successful establishment of any business. Africans are stepping up to provide funds to young people who want to enter the agriculture sector. For example, the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme has set up a US$100 million annual fund for start-ups from young people, including in agriculture.

Thirdly, African agriculture has to be mechanized and modernized. Young people run away from agriculture because of the drudgery of its manual labor and outdated tools. Mechanizing agriculture will make farming far more attractive to the youth.

The first time I sat on a tractor, my opinion of farming changed. I was in Israel as a visiting scholar with the Agriculture Research Organization when I experienced the power of farm machinery, high technology and irrigation for the farmer and her output. From that moment on, I wanted to be a farmer.

Today’s youth can also be inspired to transform their lives and the future of their countries. To do so, they need leaders at the highest levels of government, civil society and business to invest time, money and resources in agriculture and in youth. Our leaders must take a chance on the youth and help rebrand what it means to be a millennial farmer, not only through words, but more so through deeds.

Engaging our younger generation in agriculture will do more than produce food. It will create jobs, wealth, and bring the much needed agricultural makeover to Africa.

By Esther Ngumbi

- See more at: http://afkinsider.com/99947/what-itll-take-to-get-african-youth-interested-in-agriculture/#sthash.e9IlZXBk.jz11qkG2.dpuf

The Biggest Opportunity In Agriculture May Be In Africa, And China Is Seizing It

As the world population surges to 9 billion people by 2050 and demands on the global food supply soar, the greatest opportunity for profits in agriculture may be in Africa. Seventy percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land is on the continent, according to Sara Menker, the founder of Gro Intelligence, an agricultural data company with offices in New York City and Kenya.

And if there is any one country that is taking advantage of the opportunity, it’s China. The People’s Republic has bought up about 12 million acres of land to grow grains that get shipped back to China, Menker told a packed tent of 425 entrepreneurs, investors and agriculture executives at the Forbes Reinventing America AgTech Summit in Salinas, California on Thursday. “The world doesn’t know about it because these are really quiet deals,” she added. “These are large-scale farming operations in sesame, wheat, corn for export to China. It doesn’t really interact with the African farmer. It doesn’t get traded locally. It is purely for Chinese export.”

Sara Menker, founder of Gro Intelligence, speaks at the Forbes AgTech Summit in Salinas, California on July 9. Photo credit: Glen Davis / Forbes

The Chinese investments are not bearing fruit just yet. There may be plenty of land in Africa, but much of the rural landscape isn’t connected to ports by adequate infrastructure. That means new investors on the continent, which also include governments like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, have to spend billions of dollars clearing land and building roads before they can even start farming.

Private Indian agriculture companies have had even more trouble getting started, Menker said, because they don’t have huge government budgets to fund infrastructure improvements. “They have been less successful because the economics are really hard to deal with in the early stages,” Menker said. “You have to deploy billions of dollars from the get-go.”

But the investments don’t appear to be slowing down. Menker predicts that much of the world’s food will eventually come from Africa. “It’s really about where opportunities are for new farmland exist,” she said. “You’ll see a lot more commercial production shift to different parts of the world.”

Source: www.forbes.com

Friday, 17 July 2015

OXFAM TO HONOUR OUTSTANDING FEMALE FARMERS

Oxfam, in its bid to encourage entrepreneurial skills among women, is set to honour outstanding women small-scale farmers in Nigeria.

The award tagged, ‘Female food hero,’ would honour women small scale farmers that have demonstrated outstanding entrepreneurial spirit and best practice despite the numerous challenges they face.
In a statement, the Oxfam’s Research Policy & Advocacy Coordinator, Mr. Abdulazeez Musa, said the award is aimed at improving livelihoods, building leadership qualities, empowerment and raising the profile of small-scale farmers, especially female farmers.
Musa, who said this year’s award is scheduled to hold on the 15th of October, added that nomination for the award is on-going while he called on women to make good use of this opportunity.
“Individuals can be self-nominated, nominated by any CSO/NGO partner working towards improving livelihoods and breaking the cycle of poverty or by family and friends,” he said.
He said nominations would require two supporting references, while it can be downloaded from www.ffhnigeria.org while completed forms can be submitted to the states ministries of agriculture, or via email to nomination@ffhnigeria.org on or before July 31.
He said the selection criteria for the winning nominees are informed by Oxfam’s objective to increase poor and disadvantaged people access more food, more income and more control.

Credit: Daily Trust

Tuesday, 14 July 2015

How To Make Money In Quail Farming

For us at Jovana Farms, raising Quail, grasscutter, Rabbit, Snail, guinea pig and antelope has became second nature. The production of these animals especially quails gives small holder farmers a big chance to increase their income, health and offers an alternative means of livelihood to urban and rural farmers in addressing poverty. It is for these that we launched an initiative to promote quail farming as a suitable occupation that can contribute to food security, wealth, health and employment creation. As the Cattle which could have been another major source of protein, is being drained by desert encroachment, pest attacks and other factors.

Quail farming is emerging as a productive enterprise since it can be reared in small floor space and lays an egg per day. Quails are very poor feeders but good layers and all one needs is maintaining clean environment around them. In terms of nutritional value addition, quail meat and egg is tastier than chicken and has less fat and cholesterol content.

Quail farming: means of quick cash

The Quail (Coturnix Coturnix), a member of the Galliformes order, is considered a very promising ‘’micro Poultry-farm’’ species for rural and urban development because it requires little capital, equipment, space and labor, and provides an inexpensive, readily available and high quality meat and eggs. From prehistoric times, it has been raised for food in Japan and America. Quails are now also reared for meat and eggs in different countries of America, Asia and Africa.

Although quail farming contribute to the alleviation of protein deficiency in diets of people in developing countries, they have largely been neglected as a livestock species due to its size. Most farmers have focused mainly on chicken production. Thus, their actual contributions to healthy food production have been greatly ignored and or underestimated by extension and other development workers, and policy makers in the agricultural sector in developing countries. Especially in Nigeria, there is little knowledge on their production, medicinal value, marketing and consumption under smallholder conditions.

Therefore, quail farming should be encouraged with a special focus on the traditional subsistence rearing system as practiced by limited- resource farmers

The business of quail farming in Nigeria is now growing at a feverish pitch attracting entrepreneurs who are considering it either as a complementary business proposition or as a main and sustainable revenue stream. But either proposition has potentials to earn decent returns. This could be taken to be a fair confirmation of the position that, run professionally, quail farming may well be a key wealth creation engagement to consider in the country.

Quail farming is an uncommon farming business in Nigeria, but the few people that have embraced it are not only smiling to banks, they are also enjoying both the Nutritional and health values derived from consuming it, it is no doubt one booming farming business that will gradually take over chicken- poultry business in the country very soon. The high rate of returns and low cost of investment as well as rearing them are some of the reasons many farmers are fast resorting to quail farming. A mature chicken-hen consumes an average of 150 grammes of food per day and requires a regular administration of drugs, while a quail eats 20 grammes of food per day and hardly requires any drugs.

Additionally, while a kilogramme of chicken meat goes for N600 on average in Nigeria, quail which hardly weighs half –a – kilogrammes at maturity attracts N700.

A female-quail lays an egg daily which cost between N20 to N30 and demand is so high that it is not being met today. Quails take about five- six weeks to mature and their meat is highly recommended for people keen on boosting their immunity against many diseases, their egg a wonderful super-food that can treat various ailments. It is by far more profitable to keep quails as they are less demanding than chicken.

You can get started, without the costly items the so-called experts say you should have, with N18, 000 one can kick-off with 6 males and 24 females depending on the age and specie. They can be reared in cages and small floor space.

Jovana Farms Ltd helps people to set-up farms for quail, grasscutter, snail, rabbit, etc. It has, for sale, fast growing species of these animals including large quantity of quail eggs.

You can put more naira in your pocket from just 10 minutes work a day in a small investment, quail farming is a miracle waiting to happen in Nigeria livestock business.

Jovana farms organizes nationwide sensitization training seminars on the practical ways of making it through small scale animal farming. Attend our nationwide seminars nearest to you and know more opportunities in quail and other small animal farming.

By Prince Arinze Onebunne

Visit: www.jovanafarm.com

Africa’s Agricultural Revolution will be more Silicon Valley than Rift Valley By Esther Ngumbi

The African Development Bank, Africa’s biggest lending institution, recently elected a new leader: Akinwumi Adesina. The former Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria, Adesina led an agricultural transformation in his country. Among Adesina’s revolutionary acts was the launch of a program to develop 750,000 young entrepreneurs—Nagropreneurs—in agriculture. In his new position, Adesina will have the opportunity to promote similar reforms across Africa. It is just what Africa needs.

Africa has the world’s largest proportion of young people, as well as the highest prevalence of hunger in the world. The majority live in rural areas, and their families are farmers who largely remain outside the mainstream of the formal economy, struggling to increase their productivity and incomes.

Today, 70 percent of Africa’s young people live on less than US$2 a day and the youth unemployment is high. African countries face the challenge of providing employment to the young, even as its working age population is expected to double to one billion over the next 25 years. Agricultural development offers a crucial part of the solution to this dilemma.

For sustainable economic growth to become a defining reality across the region, this young generation must be empowered to transform agriculture from a poverty trap to a high-technology powerhouse of innovation in sustainable development.

Africa’s agricultural revolution will be digitized and monetized. Its leaders will make millions. Its rank and file will have college degrees, sport wearable technology, operate high-tech tractors and drones, read soil maps, interpret weather data, and access futures markets. Africa has the potential to produce abundant, safe and healthy food that will not only meet the continent’s food needs, but also be of such taste, class and distinction that the whole world will want it.

But to get there, Africa’s youth need to lead. And, today, our younger generation wants nothing to do with agriculture, because it is tedious. They see it as a dead-end.

I can relate to this mindset. Growing up in a rural farm in the Kenyan Coast, we had to grow everything that we ate. I did not enjoy the process of farming, and never ever did I want to be a farmer. Instead, I wanted to be a banker. I envied the accountants seated in air-conditioned offices. I, too, wanted a career that would make me look—and feel—cool.

Young people possess the energy and creativity needed to transform agriculture. They are tech-savvy, purpose-driven and entrepreneurial. Africa should inspire our younger generation so that they see agriculture as a sector of opportunity that will not only provide jobs and wealth for young agri-preneurs, but also good food for Africa’s increasing population.

Agri-preneurs can tap into opportunities all along the value chain: from supplying fertilizer and seed, to processing, transporting and marketing of food. Once tapped into, these opportunities can turn young jobless Africans into millions of success stories. What will it take to achieve this?