By Tony Obiechina, Abuja 

The World Bank said it has disbursed at least $12bn, almost half of which was to Africa, to help beneficiary counties cope with food shortage.

In a report titled “Food Security Update: World Bank Response to Rising Food Insecurity” the Bank noted that domestic food prices remained high all over the world, especially in low and middle income countries.

According to the Bank, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, trade-related policies imposed by countries have surged, and the global food crisis has been partially made worse by the growing number of food trade restrictions put in place by countries with a goal of increasing domestic supply and reducing prices.

The Bank also said a $30bn relief package, spread over a period of 15 months, including $12bn in new projects, will be rolled out to help counties cope with food insecurity.

According to the report, up to 205 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity and to be in need of urgent assistance in 45 countries.

“World wheat prices fell in January for a third consecutive month; international coarse grain prices remained mostly unchanged; and international rice prices rose at an accelerated pace in January 2023.

“Overall, FAO’s analysis indicates that high prices have persisted for the past three months despite some evidence of easing from 2022 peaks in certain countries, with rice price hikes mostly responsible for sustained high cereal prices.”

Beyond the fiscal stimulus, the World Bank Group stated it had partnered the G7 Presidency and co-convened the Global Alliance for Food Security, which aimed to catalyse an immediate and concerted response to the unfolding global hunger crisis.

The report added that the alliance had developed the publicly accessible Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard, which provided timely information for global and local decision-makers to help improve coordination of the policy and financial response to the food crisis.

The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) has established an animal husbandry farm with cow milking parlour.

The farm with capacity for 500 cows and cow milking parlour with capacity of 200 cows in a set, sits on a 100 hectares land in Sokoto State.

NALDA said the idea behind the project was to develop a modern animal husbandry farm that would sustain itself and reduce the movement of cows within the area.

The Executive Secretary, NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, who disclosed this while speaking with newsmen after inspecting the farm and the poultry feed mill facility, said he was satisfied with the level of work at the facilities.

He explained that the essence of establishing the modern animal husbandry farm, which has cow pens with napier grass on 50 hectares, with the construction of clinics/veterinary sections and a training centre, was to reduce the movement of cattle and end the farmers/herders clashes.

Ikonne said that NALDA was committed to achieving food security and development, as he assured that the farm would generate employment, hygienic milk production and cow fattening for meat.

At the same time, the farm would train and encourage young farmers to go into animal husbandry and animal food formulation, according to the NALDA boss.

Construction workers were spotted at the 100 hectares farmland at the section of the clinic and training centre building where work was ongoing, while the 500 cow capacity pens and the cow milking parlour have both been completed.

Also spotted were those watering the napier grass field using the boreholes provided by NALDA at the farm.

The farm is located at Dabagin-lafia, opposite the Usman Danfodio University farm, while the poultry feed mill is situated in Dayin village along the road to Doba, in Sokoto State.

“NALDA is into partnership with Prime Ranch Ltd, who donated the 100 hectares of land where we are establishing the animal husbandry farm, napier grass field and will cultivate maize and millet on 30 hectares of the said land,” Ikonne stated.

“The establishment of the napier grass field is to ensure feed production for the cows, as that will eliminate the roaming around of the animals in search of feed, thereby curtailing farmer/herder clash.

“The milking parlour will serve both the cows in the farm and other animal husbandry farmers who would want their cows milked in a hygienic way.

“Prime Ranch will manage the farm on completion based on their wealth of experience in animal husbandry. This type of partnership is sustainable, productive and should be encouraged in order for us to achieve food security and development,” he added.

On employment opportunities through the partnership, Ikonne stated that with the establishment of the poultry feed mill, which Prime Ranch provided the land and was managing the 62,000 poultry capacity, there would be feed production for small farmers across the zone and other parts of the country.

He said job opportunities would also be created for those who would work at the milking parlour by attending to the cows.

“The employment chain will not be anything less than 400, consisting of workers who would be directly involved in these activities, outside the output, which is achieving food sufficiency,” he stated.

Also speaking during inspection of both projects, the farms and feed mill, the Founder, Prime Ranch Ltd, Nafiu Yakubi, said the partnership with NALDA was coming into fruition.

“The thinking when we incorporated Prime Ranch years back, is to have a ranch kind of arrangement whereby we grow our animals, grow their feeds, fatten them, and sell them off to the market. The partnership with NALDA is a very cordial one. They support us in all areas that we need support from them,” he said.

On the output from the partnership, Yakubu said, “Arising from this partnership with NALDA, you have seen the feed mill. We are currently producing feed for our poultry and other NALDA poultry farmers.”

He thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for encouraging young farmers through NADLA, stressing that the President had called Nigerians to return to farming, as he urged Nigerian youths to yield to the call.

“I am a lawyer and I am back to the farm, so Nigerian youths should go back to farming. It is very profitable and the opportunities are very wide,” Yakubu stated.

From Alfred Babs, Ilorin

Kwara state is the highest producer of Catfish in Nigeria as Farmers claimed that no less than 45 tonnes of fish loaded in buses move out of the state daily, deputy coordinator of fish farmers in the state, Brigadier General Saidu Olasupo (retd) has disclosed.

Speaking with reporters at the meeting of the State Fish farmers held in Ilorin, the state capital on Thursday, Olasupo said that no fewer than 30 buses loaded with 1.

The retired Army officer who said that many youths have embraced fish farming in Kwara state added that their contribution to the economy of the state is huge.

Olasupo who said that he turned to fish farming after retiring from the Military Service stated that Kwara state is

highest producer of catfish in Nigeria, adding that the state ranked

amongst the 10th in Africa.

He said, “currently, we have 35 clusters and each of the clusters has minimum of 50 registered members.

“Our contributions which are both tangible and intangible- to the economy of the state is huge. Each day we have nothing less than 30 buses loaded with

fish and each with a load of about 1.3 tonnes moving out of Kwara.

There is no family directly or indirectly that is not affected by this business that we are doing. Take the value-chain for instance. We have fish food millers, major distributors, minor distributors and even Olam Company etc.”

Speaking on the challenges facing the farmers, Olasupo said, “There is no business without challenges. There are challenges with the farmers themselves

as well as the buyers of the product.

“The skyrocketing rise in the pump price of automotive gas oil (Diesel),

premium motor spirit (Petrol) otherwise known as petrol or even the

engine oil. Of course if the inputs go up, it is expected that the price of production will go up.

“However, cost of production or inputs is going up, but the increase in price of the final fish itself is not commensurate with the spiral rise in the prices of those inputs.”

For coordination and effectiveness, he said that “fish farmers started

registration with the state Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development last year. Very soon we will have huge data that will be known to government. This will enable the government to take informed decisions on how to help the fish farmers.”

Olasupo however appealed to the government to come to the aid of fish farmers especially by subsidizing inputs needed by the farmers and adequate provision of water from it dams as the success of fish farming depends majorly on availability of Water.