The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Farmer

  • Farmer, musician, others get N1m in Glo promo

    Farmer, musician, others get N1m in Glo promo

    A 50-year-old farmer  who just came out of detention for a minor traffic offence and a musician, are among the 20 winners that were presented with their N1million cheque  each at the on-going N120 million Glo Overload promo.

    The N120 million Glo Overload promo is one of the five mega promotions running on the Globacom network to make the Yuletide and New Year season even happier for the company’s subscribers.

    Under the N120 million Glo Overload promo, subscribers are to be dazzled with an overload of benefits including mouth-watering bonus call credits, SMS and data volumes, as well as, cash prizes of N1 million for 120 subscribers.

    The lucky farmer, Mr. Toyin Adeshina narrated that he was arrested recently after a police car crushed his cow and the vehicle was damaged.  “Thereafter, I was remanded in Kirikiri prisons for 17 days and I have so far spent all I have on the case. It was in the midst of all these that Globacom called to inform me that I had won one million naira,” Adeshina narrated to reporters.

    Mr. Oluwatosin Alade a producer and guitarist also went home on Monday with N1m cash prize which he plans to invest in his music career.

  • Ebonyi to train volunteer farmers

    Ebonyi to train volunteer farmers

    The Ebonyi State government has said that it had concluded arrangements for the training of 2,600 volunteer farmers in commercial farming.

    The state Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources,Mr Romanus Nwasum, told journalists in Abakaliki that the volunteer farmers would be drawn from the 13 local government areas of the state.

    ‘’The youth volunteer farmers will be trained on various techniques involved in modern agricultural practices as well as get exposed to the new technology involved in the business.’’

    He said that government was hoping that the skills acquired would assist them to embrace commercial farming.

    ‘’This initiative is in line with the state government’s transformation agenda in the agricultural sector of the economy and it is designed to encourage youths to venture into commercial farming.

    ‘’More so, the training will develop their capacity and enhance their skills for self-reliance as well as make them become employers of labour,’’ Nwasum said.

    He added that it would also expose them to different branches of agricultural production such as rice farming, animal husbandry, fishery, bee-keeping, snail-rearing and piggery, among others.

    The commissioner said that the initiative was part of the government’s transformation agenda in the agriculture sector of the economy, adding that, it was aimed at boosting food production in the state.

    He described commercial agriculture as a lucrative business and called on the youth to develop interest in farming to improve their revenue base with a view to boosting the nation’s economy.

  • Farmer seeks phased ban of fish importation

    Niger State-based fish farmer, Malam Zakari Usman, yesterday urged the Federal Government to adopt “a careful and phased implementation” of the prohibition of fish importation.

    In a statement in Lagos, the farmer noted that an outright ban, as contemplated by the Ministry of Agriculture, could have negative impact on consumers.

    Usman, a retired banker, said the government’s bid to save foreign exchange and promote local farming with the proposed ban is noble, but should not be done at once.

    He said: “An outright ban will have profound consequences for the people, who will be abruptly denied their sole source of protein.

    “A strategy of careful and phased implementation seems imperative, given that this product touches the basic essential aspects of people’s sustenance and healthy living in the country.

    “It is common knowledge that fish is the most economical and affordable source of protein for millions of Nigerian consumers.”

    Usman said the Ministry of Agriculture recently painted a gloomy picture that Nigeria produces only 30 per cent of the country’s fish needs.

    According to him, Nigeria requires 2.66 million tonnes of fish annually to satisfy the dietary needs of its citizens.

    He added: “Out of this, only a paltry 700,000 tonnes is produced locally – this includes only 200,000 tonnes from aqua culture. Further, in case of locally farmed fish, the fish feed accounts for 70 per cent of the cost of production – which is imported, draining valuable foreign exchange.”

    Usman quoted the Oyo State Director for Agriculture as saying, for instance, that the state would increase table fish production by 250,000 tonnes per annum while the production of value added fish and fisheries would be increased by 100,000 tonnes per annum.

     

  • Farmer smiles home with The Nation promo car

    Farmer smiles home with The Nation promo car

    •Says: ‘I feel great

    A POULTRY farmer – Mr. Ganiyu Adeleke, yesterday smiled home with a brand new car in Abuja.

    Adeleke was the star prize winner of a sales promo organised for patrons in Abuja and the North by the The Nation and Sporting Life, a daily menu for sports enthusiasts.

    The lucky winner, a former employee of United Bank for Africa (UBA), now poultry farmer, described himself as an ardent reader of the brand, even without believing the promo was real.

    The promo was held at the corporate office of Vintage Press Limited, publishers of The Nation and Sporting Life, in Zone 3, Abuja.

    Adeleke, who is based in Jos, said the prize came at a time he was desperately in need of a new car.

    He said: “I felt great, I mean it was wonderful. When I saw it initially, I thought it was an arrange type we are used to. I am an ardent reader of The Nation. I have copies of the last two years in my office. So, when I saw the promo, I really didn’t give it any intention.

    “It was around the middle of November that something prompted me to participate in the promo. The spirit asked me ‘why don’t you do this thing, you have this papers in your house, why can’t you do this’ and I sat down and called my daughter to give me a scissors and I started cutting until when it was 92 pieces. So, I decided to e-mail it and I put it into prayer too.”

    When asked how he felt winning a car, Adeleke, who could not hide his appreciation, said: “I felt great; I mean it was wonderful.”

    Adeleke said he had a rickety car and that his children were planning to present him a brand new car on his forthcoming 60th birthday.

    He said it was the Lord’s doing for him to have won the car.

    His words: “I am a retired banker from UBA. I worked for 23 years and since 1997 I have been doing poultry business among other things. I have a car presently though, I do face some problems but I believe God for a new car.

    “My children are planning to buy a new one for me on my 60th birthday as a surprise gift and this one came. Really, it’s God’s gift.”

    He thanked Vintage Press Limited and prayed for God’s continuous blessing on the company and its workers.

    Presenting the keys to the Tata car to Adeleke, the Managing Editor, Northern Operation of The Nation, Alhaji Yusuf Alli, said: “We will sustain the excellence which has earned The Nation the confidence of avid and analytical readers in the country.

     

  • Farmer smiles home with THE NATION’s promo car

    Farmer smiles home with THE NATION’s promo car

  • Farmer Oaks versus Farmer Hoax

    Farmer Oaks versus Farmer Hoax

    It is far from the madding crowd of Wadata Plaza, the PDP’s intrigue-soaked headquarters. For the umpteenth time, it is meet to alert fellow countrymen —as they say about the ease with which superior reality trumps and trounces outlandish fiction in Nigeria. Even the most accomplished novelist must now shiver in reverence about how actual reality in the country often outstrips the most malarial of imaginative constructs. Nigeria is a great novel perpetually in progress.

    It has been reported that the youthful and bubbling Minister of Agriculture in the latest edition of OFN (Operation Fool Nigerians) has officially countermanded his own permanent secretary, Ibukun Odusote, to insist that there was no going back on spending 60 billion naira to procure mobile phones for farmers. Phew, what a phoney racket!!! How a supposedly tested technocrat could find himself embroiled in this seamy scam remains one of the great twists of an engrossing novel. In the past, it was fertilizers that fertilized unconscionable looting, now the World Bank wonk and policy whizz kid has introduced his own Mobile Banking. Farmer Hoax finally meets Farmer Oaks.

    Ever heard of Gabriel Oaks? If you haven’t you are not likely to have heard of Thomas Hardy. Hardy was one of the greatest novelists of all time. In the glorious sixties, his classic novels such as Far From the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge constituted the staple fare of those tortuous O and A level exams. Farmer Oaks was the protagonist of Far From the Madding Crowd. It was a riveting tale of roiling passion and unrequited love. Oaks was a man of pious virtues, uncommon nobility and sturdy integrity. In a moment of trusting stupidity, he allowed a knave shepherd to run his entire flock over the cliff. Poverty and penury became his lot.

    We must watch how reality abuses fiction. In the nineteenth century, Honore de Balzac, the great French novelist, was so stunned by the outlandish and improbable reality of French society that he simply appointed himself a Social Secretary who would record happenings for posterity without any embellishment. In the end, Balzac himself could no longer distinguish between reality and fiction. On his deathbed, the great man called out for a certain Dr Banchioc as the only physician capable of saving him. “Call me Banchioc!! Only Banchioc can save me now!!” the novelist screamed.

    The great snag was that there was no such living doctor. Banchioc was one of Balzac’s own great fictional creations. And there the matter rested. But so too did the great novelist. As the Yoruba will say, a farmer who planted a hundred tubers but who claims to have planted two hundred must eat his fictional yam after consuming his real harvest. Can any rural farmer forward the telephone number of the honorable minister? Agrarian communication, my foot.