The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Hunger

  • AGRA votes $2.6m to fight poverty, hunger in West Africa

    The fight against hunger and poverty in West Africa has received a big boost with the training of new plant breeders to help deal with challenges faced by  small-scale farmers.

    Thirty  students from Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have been selected to benefit from the programme, jointly launched by Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and  the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

    They would be awarded the Improved Master of Science (MSc) In Cultivar Development for Africa (IMCDA) degree at the end of their two-year training.

    The Programme Officer , AGRA, Prof Rufaro Madakadze, said the objective is to increase the availability of a new set of plant breeders, who would work to lift farmers out of poverty.

    The AGRA is providing US$2.67 million to fund the programme.

    The Vice Chancellor of the KNUST, Prof. William Otoo Ellis,  said it would improve the capacity of the university to train industry- ready plant breeders to produce pest, disease and drought-resistant seeds and hybrid seeds.

    They would work more efficiently in both public and private sectors to increase crop yield and incomes of farmers.

    Ellis said they would achieve this through the use of modern breeding technologies, data management, emphasis on experimental learning and acquisition of soft skills.

    The Provost of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) of the University, Prof. Richard Akromah, said it would assure the region of food security.

  • Lagos reduces hunger, poverty, want

    The Programme Manager  and  Chief  Executive, Lagos State Agricultural Development Authority (LSADA), Mr. Kayode Ashafa  has said  the  state is  repositioning  the  agriculture sector to  improve food security and reduce hunger by   encouraging  Nigerians  to invest in farming.

    Speaking during this year’s edition of farmers forum in Lagos, Ashafa said  the  government  has   taken up important new schemes to boost agricultural production.

    So far, he said, the state agricultural programmes are delivering results that are changing the face of poverty and hunger.

    According to him, the government has reached a lot of smallholder farmers with new technologies  aimed at increasing agricultural production.

    Present at the farmers’ forum are the Commissioner for Agriculture, Prince Gbolahan Lawal; the  Permanent  Secretary, Dr Yakub Basorun; the Project manager, Agriculture Development Authority, Mr Kayode Ashafa, the State project Cordinator, Commercial Agriculture Development Project, Mr Kehinde Ogunyinka, among others.

    As part of measures to boost the morale of the farmers in the state,  the Lagos State Agriculture Development Authority (ADA), Oko-Oba, Lagos  State gave out  a total of 14.8 million naira, as well as farming equipment worth eight million naira to farmers spread across the state.

    The cash was given to boost agricultural activities in four State Programme  for Food Security (SPFS) sites. The four SPFS sites that benefited from the cash gifts are; Igboye/Igbonla SPFS  site which went home with a cheque of N3million; while Ado/Badore SPFS site went home with a cheque of 1.8 million naira; Ayobo/Ipaja and Igbalu/Gberigbe SPFS sites went home with a cheque five million naira each.

    SPFS sites major in agriculture activities which include poultry, piggery, crop production, aqualculture processing, among others.

    Ashafa said:  “The cash is to assist the farmers in ensuring that there’s surplus food  for our teeming population, not only in Lagos, but across the country.

    ”We cannot afford to fail our people in feeding them.”

    Apart from the cash gifts, twenty groups spread across the state went home with farming equipment worth N8 million. The equipment are; 20 water pumps, 150 wheel barrow, 200 cutlasses, 200 J K files, 200 rain boots, 200 big hoes, 200 shovels/spades, 200 safety gadgets, 200 iron buckets, 150 big plastic bowls, among others.

    One of the beneficiaries who identified himself as Alhaji Hammed from Igboye/Igbonla SPFS site said: “Our site was one of those that benefited from the cash gifts.  The Lagos State government has indeed been helpful to the farmers, and the only way to pay back is to make good use of the money to ensure more production of foods to our teeming population.”

    Another beneficiary who spoke with our reporter on condition of anonymity said:

    “Our group be nefitted from the farm equipment distributed. We are so grateful, we promise to make good use of those equipment.”

  • People fleeing Boko Haram battle hunger

    People fleeing Boko Haram battle hunger

    Hundreds of Nigerians who have escaped violence by Takfiri Boko Haram militants have been stranded in a mountainous area without any food.

    “We are in distress. We need help. We have been starving for the past four days. We are surviving now on wild fruits,” said Liman Ngosha, a farmer from the town of Gwoza, on Saturday.

    Boko Haram militants attacked Gwoza town, some 135 kilometers from Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno State, on Wednesday.

    Dozens of people were killed and hundreds of others forced to flee toward the Mount Mandara near the Cameroon border.

    Survivors said there were no soldiers in the town to defend them when the militants attacked before dawn, adding that the gunmen destroyed the residence of the town’s emir as well as several other buildings.

    “I cannot tell the exact number of people that were killed. Before I fled, over 100 corpses littered the streets of Gwoza,” Ngosha said.

    The attack on Gwoza town came only a few weeks after the militants seized Damboa, also in the Borno State.

    The notorious Takfiri group has repeatedly targeted Nigerian civilians, mostly in Borno, killing more than 2,000 civilians since January.

    On April 14, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 students from their secondary school in the town of Chibok in Borno. Reports say 57 of the girls managed to escape, but 219 are still believed to be in captivity, and international efforts to locate and rescue them have failed so far.

  • Varsity to reduce hunger in Africa

    Purdue University researchers will lead a $5 million, five-year effort to help countries in sub-Saharan Africa reduce hunger and poverty fuelled by food waste.

    By improving processing and marketing of key crops, those in developing countries can make better use of food that already is being produced but is simply lost through poor storage or processing technologies and management practices.

    The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Processing and Post-Harvest Handling was announced by the United States Agency for International Development administrator Rajiv Shah at the Chicago Council’s Global Food Security Symposium.

    It is funded by Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative led by USAID.

    “This award from Feed the Future will enable Purdue to help smallholder farmers make available not only more food in a region of the world where it is greatly needed but also more nutritious food,” said university President Mitch Daniels.

  • Be wary of voluntary hunger punishment, says don

    A senior lecturer at the Lagos State University (LASU) Dr Mustapha Bello, has enjoined Muslims to imbibe the lessons of fasting.

    Dr. Bello said anything contrary to this, Muslims risk fasting for 29 or 30 days without any reward.

    He said people that revert to their old misdeeds after Ramadan engaged in nothing, but voluntary hunger punishment.

    He spoke yesterday during the Annual Quranic competition organised by Abdur-Rasheed Mafe Quranic Foundation (AMQF) at Ipaja, Lagos.

    According to the university teacher, Ramadan is meant to cleanse Muslims of their sins.

    “Whoever fast for 29/30 days and stayed away from untoward actions, but returns to those actions after Ramadan, such person just went on voluntary hunger punishment because Ramadan is evolved to correct Muslims’ shortcomings and turn them into a new being,” he said.

    Bello lamented government’s insensitivity to religion, accusing the nation’s leaders of handling it with levity.

    He said religious study is being gradually faded out from schools.

    “During our days in school, National Education Policy allowed science students to do religious studies. But it is not like that today. Let it be known, religious education played a great role in curbing youth restfulness,” he said.

    AMQF founder Alhaji Abdur-Rasheed Mafe told the gathering that Islam does not forbid acquiring western education as erroneously championed by the Boko Haram.

    Mafe said Prophet Muhammad encouraged all forms of education and related cordially with the non-Muslims.

    He wondered how Boko Haram could justify their senseless actions when Prophet Muhammad forbade bloodshedding.

    The event chairman  Akeem Sulaiman urged Nigerians to be security conscious.

    Sulaiman enjoined mothers to be wary of their children’s peers.

    Also speaking, Kamal Salau-Bashua urged Nigerians to be their brothers’ keepers and report suspected moves to security agencies.

    He believed the country would overcome the insecurity challenges.

     

  • Hunger ravages Crown players

    Players of Glo Premier League side, Crown FC have vowed to go on an industrial action if their demands are not met by their employers, supersport.com can report.

    A player of the side, who wants his identity undisclosed, divulged to supersport.com that the players have been starving since February when their employers have refused to pay them their salaries and entitlements.

    The source said that the players have all agreed to engage in an open revolt so as to press for their salaries and bonuses.

    “Can you believe that we have been playing with empty stomachs since February?And all our bosses don’t even care,but when we lose, they would roar at us like lions.

    “As I’m speaking to you now, many of us have not taken our breakfast and we are playing for a Premier League side. Is that not ungodly?

    “The only thing our boss would do is for them to sack 12 of our members without a genuine reason and they were not even given a dime.

    “The sacked players are still very much around begging for what to eat as we have all turned to beggars in the street,” the player said to supersport.com.

    Supersport.com then spoke to the general manager of the club, Fatai Olayinka and he said: “Serious efforts are being made to ensure that the players get paid.”

    Crown FC will travel to Umuahia to face newcomers, Abia Warriors this weekend,and it is now unclear if the players would honour the encounter.

  • Desertification: 35 million people face threat of hunger

    Following the devastating effect of desertification, Permanent Secretary, Ecological Fund Office (EFO), Engr. Goni Sheikh, has expressed fear that about 35 million people are under threat of hunger in the country.

    Sheikh said the victims reside in areas prone to desertification such as the 11 frontline states in the north, including, Bauchi, Borno,

    Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara.

    He spoke at an event on providing Sustainable Desertification and Drought Control Projects organised by the Department of Desertification Control and Drought Amelioration, EFO at the weekend in Abuja.

    Sheikh said: “Nigeria is believed to be losing approximately 320, 000 to 350, 000 hectares of land annually, with at least 35 million people facing threats of hunger and economic down turn due to the present scale of desertification

    Earlier, Prof. Emmanuel Oladipo of Ahmadu Bello University identified the roles of research and capacity building in addressing challenges of environmental degradation in the country.

    Associate Professor of Geography, Bayero University, Kano, Ibrahim Baba-Yakubu said the federal government should initiate ideas just beyond tree planting to solve desertification.

     

  • Over 40% Nigerians are hungry, says expert

    Efforts by successive governments at addressing food security in the country are yet to provide the desired result as over 40 percent of Nigerians do not have sufficient food on daily bases, a University teacher, Professor Babatope Alabadan, has disclosed.

    He also said that globally, over 800 million people, including 300 million children, go to bed hungry daily due to food insecurity.

    Alabadan who made these assertions yesterday while delivering the 25th inaugural lecture of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, titled, ”Housing and Food Security: Now and in the Future- Lessons from the Termites”, said  the three tiers of government in the country must go beyond paying lip service to food security by ensuring that the people have physcial, economic and social access to food, if Vision 20:2020 is to be accomplished.

    The professor of agricultural engineering blamed the food shortages in the country on huge food losses due to inadequate storage facilities, a development which he said has continued to affect the country’s economy and possess a threat to her national security.

    To this end he said the three tiers of government in the country should embark on mass construction of capacity Silos, especially for small scale farmers in order to reduce food losses and increase local supplies.

    He lamented that despite the favorable natural condition for food production in the country, food is still being imported into the country to meet up demand because of huge food losses at the expense of the economy of the country.

    Enumerating the dangers of food losses to the nation and the world at large, Alabadan stressed that food losses represent a significant cost to the economy and greatly impacts on the nation’s ability to feed the world, emphasizing that losses affect food quality and safety, economic development and the environment.

    He then urged the federal government to establish agricultural estates and farmsteads in every state and local governments pointing out that in addition to increasing food production, it will create jobs and reduce poverty which will be in line with the attainment of the transformation agenda and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

  • ‘Hunger and anger’ll cause problems’

    Primate Theopihilus Olabayo of the Evangelical Church of Yahweh, Lagos, has decried the spate of corruption in the nation.

    Speaking yesterday at a special spiritual retreat, the cleric said corruption has left the country on the path of destruction.

    “The revolution I prophesied has come to stay with us and people are now seeing it.

    “It’s unfortunate but I predicted the decline of statehood in Nigeria in the past, hoping that the Federal Government will take leadership serious.

    “But it didn’t, and after a while I told them that God will unleash on them another formidable terrorist group.

    “And that has come to pass with the menace of Boko Haram.

    “But there is no hope in sight as to when the government will have the political will to take on corruption in this country.

    “What I see next is that the poor will face the rich and between now and next year, things will escalate.

    “God is not happy about this situation. The cry of Nigerians going to bed hungry is getting to God.

    “Those who want to say the truth cannot do so anymore, so truth is no longer being said, people are afraid for their lives.

    “They are afraid of being killed. Like I’ve said, hunger and anger will soon destroy this nation.”

    The cleric advised President Goodluck Jonathan to stop talking about the 2015 election.

    “If I were him, I would not be talking about 2015 elections.

    “If I were him, I would forget about that election and that’s even if there’s going to be an election, because there will be anarchy.

    “There will be problems. Jonathan has to be careful because the country will be divided over his contesting or not contesting.”

     

  • Oritsajafor foresees famine, hunger next year

    Oritsajafor foresees famine, hunger next year

    The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor has said flooding has exposed the country to the possibility of famine and hunger next year.

    Oritsejafor, in a statement, urged the Federal Government to avert the looming hunger.

    The statement by his Special Assistant, Media and Public Affairs, Kenny Ashaka reads: “The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor particularly notes the traumatic conditions of victims in the various refugee camps and where places, hitherto known as markets, major roads, schools, bridges, houses, including two-storey buildings have gone under water.

    “He is equally dismayed by the fact that farmlands, which have been the working arena for most Nigerians in the rural communities, have been razed while victims in the various communities rescued through motorized boats.

    “Pastor Oritsejafor sympathizes with the victims of the disaster and prays that God will protect them from all hidden dangers and deadly diseases that may have come with the floods. He prays also that God will grant them maximum security wherever they are settled.

    “The President of CAN applauds President Goodluck Jonathan for quickly responding to assist victims in the affected areas but reasons that those for whom the N17.6 billion relief fund is meant can only benefit, maximally, if it is treated as Special Intervention Fund and disbursed directly.

    “To channel the fund through Ministries, Departments, Agencies and bodies other than the Federal Government Committee set up for that purpose is to create a bureaucratic bottleneck that may end up reducing what should accrue to the victims. The President of CAN fears that if the fund is disbursed through “middlemen”, it may be wasted on items the direct victims do not require.

    “According to him, at this point of their need, what the victims require is direct financial assistance. With the magnitude of destruction of property, displacement of people and disruption of farming activities by the floods, there is a possibility of famine and nationwide hunger next year. Pastor Oritsejafor notes that the magnitude of destruction and displacement of Nigerians from their places of abode is a direct consequence of the Federal Government’s negligence to listen to predicted expert advice.”