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  • Feb, Wed, 2020
Agriculture

Organisation trains 5.5 m farmers on modern agricultural technologies to boost production 

Technology

By Mustapha Yauri

Zaria (Kaduna State) Feb. 26 2020 (NAN) Dr. Mel Oluoch, Regional Managing Director, Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) says it has trained 5, 577,050 farmers on agricultural technology application to boost food production and reduce poverty.

Oluoch stated this during a three-day SAA/Sasakawa Global 2000  (SG 2000) Nigeria Annual National Stakeholders’ Review and Planning Workshop on Wednesday in Zaria.

He disclosed that the beneficiaries were trained since inception of the programme in 1992, adding that SAA works at the grassroots level with farmers to increase productivity, improve quality of feeding and reduce the amount of labour hours spent in the fields on daily basis.

Oluach noted that the programme began in March 1992 through collaboration with Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) and relevant Federal and State Governments’ agencies to raise farmers’ productivity, value addition and create market for the produce.

He said the programmes aim to raise crop management skills of front line extension staff and smallholder farmers to increase crop production and processing.

 According to him, the SAA/SG 2000 also trained 401 private service providers such as fabricators, technicians and operators in participating states, adding that 1, 045 farmer organizations were linked to markets and 29 agro processing centres were also established within the period under review.

Oluach noted that one of the key changes the SAA made was to merge the universities programmes with field level intervention programmes.

He said  that the organisation was working with universities to administer or implement field level programmes through different approaches to enrich farmers in the region.

Also speaking, Prof. Sani Miko, Country Director, SAA/SG2000, said the workshop was aimed at getting feedback from previous year’s activity and implementation efforts from partners.

Miko said that the workshop would present SG 2000 activities for the year 2020 for better contribution from key stakeholders towards addressing perennial problems affecting smallholder farmers along the value chains.

He said the programme was observing series of technical and structural changes in order to be more focus and robust in its drive to serve smallholder farmers.

The Country Director noted that field extension and human resource development of SAA has been integrated since 2019, saying that the number of partners and universities also increased.

Miko said the SAA, with the support of the FMARD was implementing the programmes in 12 states in the six geopolitical zones of the country.

He added that SAA planned to deploy its extension model to target areas in the next five years for public and private institutions to scale up.

“We want to see the public institutions carrying out some of the successful models and scaling them out so that they can impact on the small scale holder farmers’ productivity.

“We also pay very serious attention to youth, women and people with disabilities in our drive in terms of planning and execution.

“We are also into nutrition sensitive agriculture and climate change and we will try to functionalise partnership,’’ Miko said. (NAN)

AM/SSA/RSA

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Edited by Shuaib Sadiq Adamu/Rabiu Sani Ali

  • Feb, Wed, 2020
Agriculture

FG to train over 50,000 agricultural extension workers-Minister

 

Training

By Mustapha Yauri

Zaria (Kaduna  State), Feb. 26, 2020 (NAN) The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, has restated Federal Government’s commitment to train  more than 50,000 agricultural extension workers to boost agricultural production in Nigeria.

The minister disclosed this during  a 3-day Annual National Stakeholders Review and Planning Workshop on Wednesday  in Zaria.

Represented by Mr Frank Satumari, Director of Extension of the ministry, Nanono said Nigeria was faced with the issue of aging in agricultural extension services.

He noted that the young officers were not being trained  to take over from the senior officers that were retiring.

The minister said there was Youth and Gender Division in the Department of Agricultural Extension where the ministry used to train women and youth in the agriculture as part of the activities to revamp extension services.

He said the ministry would  also strengthen partnership  with  the private sector for in-depth analysis into the shortfall of extension workers with a view to addressing  the challenge.

He expressed optimism that the target of training the 50,000 agricultural extension workers would be achieved before the expiration of the tenure of the present administration.

“I assure you that in the next two years  there will be drastic departure from what we are seeing now,’’ he said.

Nanono recalled that the collaboration between the ministry and the training partners, Sasakawa Africa Association and Sasakawa Global 2000 SAA/SG2000 started in 1992.

He explained that the partnership was to provide a platform for extension service delivery, using extension approaches and tools that are demand-driven and market-oriented.

He added that the issue of crop post-harvest handling and access to market is also part of the training package.

“The workshop has always been timely in that it complements the agenda of the ministry where smallholder farmers are target of farmer’s education activities in the crop value chain that the ministry is promoting,’’ the minister said.

Prof. Sani Miko, Country Director, SAA/SG2000, said the workshop was aimed at getting feedback from previous year’s activity implementation efforts from partners.

He added that the workshop would present SG2000 activities for the year 2020 for better contribution from the key stakeholders towards addressing perennial problems affecting smallholder farmers along the value chains.

Also, Mr Maina Binus, Programme Manager, Gombe State Agricultural Development Project (SADP) while speaking on behalf of the Programme Managers of State Agricultural Development Project, lamented that the SADP were relegated  to the background in the various states.

He advised government and key stakeholders to revive the SADP in order to address many social and economic challenges in the country. (NAN)

AM/OSA/IU

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Edited by Shittu Obassa and Isaac Ukpoju

 

  • Feb, Fri, 2020
Environment

FG, IHE Delft Institute sign MoU to address sanitation crisis

 

MoU
By Tosin Kolade
Abuja, Feb. 21, 2020 (NAN) The Federal Government and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in Netherlands have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to train senior and middle level manpower to address sanitation crisis in the country.

The partnership, open to all Nigerian Universities and involves strengthening the National Water Resources Institute (NWRI), Kaduna Capacity Network Centres across the six geopolitical zones of the country.

The programme will run at the centres in the University of Maiduguri, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, University of Ilorin, University of Abeokuta, Nnamdi Azikiwe University and University of Calabar and in Delft, Netherlands.

It also includes the transfer of Masters of Science Sanitation programme curriculum to the selected universities and will ensure their participation in the Global Sanitation Graduate School (GSGS).

The Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu said that limited knowledge, capacity and capability on wastewater and faecal sludge management and reuse remained key bottleneck to sanitation attainment in the country.

He said improving the technical capacity of water agencies at the federal, state, and local government levels was a crucial objective of the National Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Action Plan to revitalise the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.

“Strengthening human capacity for sanitation delivery is one of the key building blocks that will get us to meeting the action plan by 2030.

“Not only must we achieve the target to end open defecation and ensure sanitation for all; we must also sustain the target.’’

Dr Peter Cookey, IHE Deflt said the institute as a foremost water and sanitation graduate training centre was honoured to be part of efforts to meet the WASH targets.

According to him, the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to prioritise WASH and end open defecation by 2025, while achieving universal access to water supply is timely and laudable.

“However, the challenge of knowledge, skills and capacity availability and adequacy is a hindrance to the SDG six targets, not just in Nigeria but in many nations globally.

“This is an area that IHE Deflt has developed a niche in as we have been training water and Sanitation practitioners at graduate and professional levels for 60 years.’’

Cookey said the institute offer professional graduate diploma in core capacity areas for water resources management, water supply, water quality, governance, sanitation, pollution among others.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Global Sanitation Graduate School is managed by the IHE, Delft Netherlands, with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, formerly known as UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education is the largest international graduate water education facility in the world and is based in Delft, Netherlands.

Since 1957, the institute has provided graduate education to more than 23,000 water professionals from over 190 countries, and is a flagship institute in the UN-Water family. (NAN)
TAK/JEY/GY
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Edited by Johnson Eyiangho/Grace Yussuf

  • Feb, Fri, 2020
Environment

Don advocates training of young people for sustainable water management

 

Water
By Tosin Kolade
Abuja, Feb. 21, 2020 (NAN) Prof. John Ohu, a Soil and Water Engineer, has called on state governments to promote sustainable practices and training of young people to manage water resources as it was a scarce commodity.

Ohu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that it was regrettable that the country had not been managing its water resources effectively, adding that there was need for training of young people to promote Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) principles.

“The main thing now is that all the states of the federation should realise that IWRM is very necessary for this country because we don’t know anything about water management, the capacity is not there.

“When we have floods for example, we don’t know what to do with the flood, everyone will just keep quiet, water will is wasted, whereas in many advanced countries, it is not so, they know exactly how they managed their resources.

“And for us in Nigeria, water is a scarce commodity that we need to get on with to know how to manage it, if not, there will be a time when we will have flood, and at another time, there won’t be water for the people.

“Almost all the states in the country have water vendors; where do they get the water from?. But because water is needed, they do not care, as long as they see the water they just use it, but you don’t know that the water is not good.

“All the state governments should make sure that they bring people for training,” he said

Ohu said that the training which takes place at the National Water Resources Institute (NWRI) in Kaduna, was only for students at the National and Higher National Diploma levels.

He noted that further discussions had led to the agreement  for more universities to be involved in the training at the Post Graduate levels.

He said that the UNESCO’s ‘Water For All’ programme saw the need for many countries to see what could be done to promote sustainability and efficiency in water resources, hence Nigeria’s involvement through the Federal Ministry of Water Resources.

He said that it was as a result of this that the Universities of Maiduguri, Ahmadu Bello,  Zaria, University of Illorin, University of Agriculture  Abeokuta, Nnamdi Azikiwe University and University of Calabar were chosen and given the requirement for hosting with the MoU signed at the NWRI Kaduna.

According to him, the Vice Chancellors for those six centres and their coordinators have all agreed that for the programme to become operational, all centres must have separate accounts which will receive funds through the NWRI from the World Bank.

He said part of the agreement was that counterpart funds would be made available and members of staff would be seconded to the centre from the universities.

“The World Bank through the NWRI will now be the one to renovate the centres and supply the equipment, equipment such as they have Hilux vehicles, generators, furniture, photocopiers and other materials for each of the centres,” he said.

According to him, states will have to send participants for training on weekend basis with the sole responsibility of paying the fees, adding that other logistics would be included.

“We have agreed that Masters programme should be common to all the six regions because that is an administrative cadre, but Post Graduate Diploma should be regionalised because what is happening in one region may not be what is happening in another, based on the needs.’’

Ohu, from the Dept. of Agriculture and Environmental Resources Engineering, University of Maiduguri, said that the top soil of the country was light and allows various kinds of pathogens to pass through its water, adding that consumption of such would lead to the outbreak of diseases. (NAN)
TAK/CCN/GY
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Edited by Chinyere Nwachukwu/Grace Yussuf

Agriculture

Food security: NDE trains Nasarawa youths on crop, livestock production

Food security: NDE trains Nasarawa youths on crop, livestock production
Training
By Awayi Kuje
Doma (Nasarawa State) Nov.1, 2019 (NAN) The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Nasarawa state has commenced the training of 50 youths in crop and livestock production in order to enable them to become self-reliant and boost food production in the state.
Alhaji Dauda-Idris Wase, the state NDE Coordinator, said this on Friday in Doma during an orientation programme for beneficiaries of the training under the agency’s Sustainable Agricultural Development Training Scheme.
Wase said that the training was to equip the young men and women with modern knowledge in both crop and livestock production.
“This is one of NDE’s modest contributions and channels for creating job opportunities for jobless Nigerians.
“The SADTS is a three-month long training scheme on modern techniques of crop and livestock production.
“It is designed to improve agricultural yields for more profit and food sufficiency in the country,” he said.
Wase further said that the training would help to provide employment and economic independence for enhanced quality of life for farm families and communities.
He said that the scheme was being implemented in two phases, adding that the first phase included two weeks intensive class.
He said that the second phase had to do with the establishment and maintenance of two model demonstration farms.
He said that the first farm was for crop production or market gardening and the second for livestock production or poultry farm.
Wase advised the participants to take the training seriously in their interest and overall agricultural development in Nigeria.
“It is only by so doing that the expected results would be realised. And this is the only way we can justify the huge government’s investment in the programme,” he said.
He also called on the state and local governments, well-meaning individuals, non-governmental organisations and community-based organisations in the state to partner NDE’s to provide more jobs for Nigerian youths.
He thanked the Chairman of Doma Local Government Area, Alhaji Rabo Sani, for accepting to host the training and providing the necessary things for the establishment of the proposed demonstration farms.
In a speech, Sani commended NDE for introducing the programme to tackle unemployment in the country.
Sani, who was represented by his deputy, Simon Otukpa, promised that the council would continue to provide an enabling environment for NDE to succeed in the area.
One of the participants, Mr Mohammed Akwe, expressed gratitude to NDE for the training and promised to put the knowledge he acquired into effective use.
AkW/ASS/USO
(Edited by Saidu Adamu/Sam Oditah)

 

 

 

 

 

Agriculture

Group trains 67,000 youths, women on poultry, fishery

Group trains 67,000 youths, women on poultry, fishery

By Awayi Kuje
Poultry
Keffi (Nasarawa State), Oct. 29, 2019 (NAN) Biya Farms Group Limited, Jos, Plateau, says it has trained over 67,000 unemployed youths and women on poultry and fisheries production in the North Central and South South States of the country, this year.
This has empowered the beneficiaries with poultry and fisheries production skills in order to enable them become self reliant and to contribute their quota to national development.
Alhaji Bilyamin Almustapha, the Managing Director of the group, made this known on Tuesday in Keffi while fielding questions from newsmen on the activities of the group in the country.
Almustapha explained that the training was under the farm’s youths and women empowerment scheme targeted at tackling poverty among the unemployed youths and women in the country.
“The importance of agriculture to societal development cannot be overemphasised, apart from the provision of food, it also generate employment opportunity to the teeming population.
“It also generates revenue to the government and that of the individual, hence the need for the formation of this group for the benefit of all Nigerians.
“Let me tell you people that apart from growing of crops and rearing of animals, the farm also engages in the training of unemployed youths and women under the farm’s youths and women empowerment scheme.
“Let me disclose to you that in Plateau, we have trained over 20,000 youths and women in Barikin Ladi, Mangu, Shendam, Bassa and Bokkos.
“In Nasarawa State, we have trained over 3,800 unemployed youths and women that is about 2,000 youths and women in Lafia, 1,000 in Keffi and 800 in Akwanga Local Government Areas, respectively.
“Then we moved to South-South region particularly we started in Calabar as we trained 20,000 in Calabar municipal on Oct.7, another 20,000 and 3,000 trained in Calabar South on Oct.14 and 24, respectively.
“When you sum them up, it will give you about 67,000 youths and women trained on poultry and fisheries production.
“All these trainings were done to equip them with management, sanitary and feeding ratio poultry and fisheries production skills to enable them become self reliant,’’ he said.
Almustapha commended local government chairman, traditional rulers and other stakeholders for their cooperation to ensure the success of the training in their respective areas/domains.
Also speaking with newsmen, Ms Immaculata Emmanuel, the farms South-South Zonal Coordinator, commended the group for keying into agricultural programme that have direct bearing on the lives of the youths, women and other Nigerians.
She restated her commitment to continue to be up and doing towards training unemployed Nigerians on poultry and fishery skills to enable them become self reliant. (NAN)
AKW/COO/MST
Edited by Cecilia Odey/Muhammad Suleiman Tola

General news

Yobe Govt establishes teachers training centre for capacity building

By Mohammed Mamman
Teachers
Damaturu, Sept. 7, 2019 (NAN) The Yobe Government has established a Teachers Training Centre in Damaturu to train existing and newly employed teachers to improve teaching in public schools.

Alhaji Baba Malam-Wali, the acting Secretary to the State Government, disclosed this in a statement issued on Saturday.

He said the establishment of the training centre was a follow up to the recommendations of the technical committee on education.

The statement said the centre would train new teachers and retrain existing teachers to improve the capacity of teachers and quality of education.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gov. Mai Mala Buni, declared state of emergency on education when he assumed office in May.

Meanwhile, the technical committee on revitalisation of basic and secondary education under the chairmanship of Prof. Mala Daura, former Vice Chancellor, University of Maiduguri, has submitted its report to the governor.(NAN)
MM/MST
Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola

Health

NMA wants end to random implementation of residency training Act

NMA wants end to random implementation of residency training Act
By Ummul Idris
Training
Abuja, May 9, 2019 (NAN) The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has called for end to it described as random implementation of the Medical Residency Training Act by the Federal Ministry of Health.
The association made the appeal in a communiqué jointly signed by Dr Frances Faduyile and Dr Olumuyiwa Odusote, the President and Secretary-General, respectively, at the end of its 59 annual general conference on Thursday in Abuja.
The association called on the Federal Government to fully implement the medical residency training act in all its institutions across the country.
NMA also said that the collective bargaining agreement of 2009 between the federal government and NMA was yet to be reviewed after 10 years.
NMA said that this was despite repeated efforts made by the association to the federal government to review such bargain in the interest of members.
It, however, directed the NOC to immediately write a powerful letter to the federal government on the need to commence the review of collective bargaining agreement.
The association noted that failure to commence the review would force NMA to declare an industrial dispute with the federal government.
The communiqué also condemned the non-implementation of CONMESS circular for the payment of medical allowances accrued to all medically qualified doctors in the employment of Nigeria universities.
It said that the career progression of doctors in some university of health service in Nigeria was not conforming to the career progression as contained in the federal Scheme of Service.
The association called on the Nigerian University Commission to direct all the Vice-Chancellors to immediately adopt revised CONMESS circular for the payment of all allowances for doctors in the employment of the universities. (NAN)
UMD/AAB/MST
Edited By Adeboye Ajayi/Muhammad Suleiman Tola

Health

UNICEF trains 32 Nasarawa health workers on infant, young child feeding

UNICEF trains 32 Nasarawa health workers on infant, young child feeding

By Awayi Kuje
Feeding
Akwanga (Nasarawa State), April 3, 2019 (NAN) The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says it has commenced the training of 32 health workers in Nasarawa State on “Community Infant and Young Child Feeding Counseling Package” in order to better the of lives of children in the state.

Dr Zakari Adam, the Chief of Field Office, UNICEF Kaduna, made this known on Wednesday at Akwanga during the six-days capacity building for the participants on Community Infant and Young Child Feeding Counseling package.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the six-day training was supported by UNICEF in collaboration with Nasarawa State Primary Health Care Development Agency.

He explained that the training was aimed at equipping nutritional health personnel with skills for effective healthcare service delivery.

Adam noted that the training was also aimed at improving on the lives of infant and young children for the overall development of the country.

“Our aim in Nigeria is to achieve positive results, especially for women and children, through access to health facilities, access to good nutrition and access to education,” he said.

Adam said that UNICEF was committed towards addressing the challenges facing women and children in Nigeria in order to improve on their health status and help them realize their rights.

“UNICEF is supporting the programme in terms of funds and also the technical aspect. We are supporting the government of Nigeria in all relevant areas that will help children grow and develop to their full capacity.

“We have cases where children are malnourished, in such case we provide them with nutritional foods free of charge.

“This training will equip participants with skills that will enable them achieve positive result in places of their primary assignment towards tackling the plight of women and children,” he said.

He assured of UNICEF continued support to government in different areas of health and education, among others.

The official restated the commitment of the organisation to continue to train and retrain government personnel and other volunteers of its programmes in order to improve on quality of lives of children.

Mr Taru Murindi and Ms Chinwe Ezeife,bUNICEF WASH and Nutrition specialists, also urged health workers to be up and doing in order to improve on the standard of living of children.

They urged the participants to pay adequate attention to the training in their interest and in the interest of the health sector.

On his part, Mr Samuel Meshi, the Executive Chairman, Akwanga Local Government Council of the state, commended UNICEF for sponsoring the training and called for its sustenance.

The chairman appealed to UNICEF to provide motorcycles and other logistics to some health workers in the area to enable them cover more more communities for effective monitoring and provision of quality healthcare service delivery. (NAN)
AKW/MST
Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola

awayikuje@gmail.com

Environment

UNICEF trains 25 women on production of re-usable pads

Pads
By Tosin Kolade
Makurdi (Benue), March 26, 2019 (NAN) The UN Children’s Fund has trained 25 women in the production of re-usable sanitary pads to improve women and girls’ health in Malumfashi Local Council in Katsina State.

 

Mr Job Ominyi, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Officer, said this on the sidelines of a Training of Trainers workshop on Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) in Makurdi on Tuesday.

 

He said that this became necessary following the outcome of a research in 2015 among the three major ethnic groups and realising that there was poor knowledge, attitude and practice on MHM in parts of the country.

 

According to him, the outcome saw that a large number of women and girls lack information and WASH resources to support hygiene management, saying taboos and myths still played a major role.

 

He said that there were issues of poor information on disposal of menstrual waste and the unavailability of absorbent materials to manage menstruation, saying the pilot project in Katsina had seen that interventions could be achieved in schools and communities.

 

Ominyi noted that In schools, awareness creation was given to boys to understand that menstruation was a natural biological occurrence for school girls and there was need for support and  in communities, men were enlightened on how to support their women.

 

He said that this training had been cascaded to other women with some local governments coming to learn from the trained ones, who were further retraining of more women and making businesses out of it.

 

He said that guidelines on hygiene promotion were being revised to include MHM, saying such interventions would go a long way to improve women and girls health.

 

He however said that challenges such as delay from the traditional rulers in supporting such interventions were due to perceived myths, religious beliefs and misconceptions.

 

The WASH officer said that since the Federal Government had endorsed MHM as an integral part of development, it was important to build the capacity of all duty bearers on the issue, saying this would help to champion the course to scale up.

 

“We must start mobilising Nigerians, men, boys, girls and women to start looking at MHM as a development issue and each one bring to the table what could be done to contribute toward promoting women and girls’ empowerment.’’

 

He said that UNICEF as an organisation, advocated for the rights of women and children, stressing that the commitment would remain and was already demonstrated in its policies and programmes.

 

“We believe in taking a look at the global improvement that are taking place and rather than reinventing the wheel, we take the bits and pieces of the issues globally and use it in our own context.

 

“The stakeholders have been supportive, hence the launch of the Clean Nigeria Website, we know that it won’t be long that Nigeria will be declared open defecation-free.’’

Participants at the event deliberated on gender roles, human rights to water and sanitation and what could be done to scale up WASH in communities among others. (NAN)
TAK/GY
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Edited by Grace Yussuf