₦airaland Forum

EzeUche0:
What are you talking about? The Igbos can mobilize themselves in any minute. We did it before, we can do it again. We are the only group, besides our allies the Ibibio and Ogoni who battled the Nigerian military in open warfare. No other group can say this. And we are the only people who can destroy Nigeria. Without the East, Nigeria is nothing.

I can see you do not know the dynamics of the East. We Igbos make up 75% of the entire population of the entire region East of the River Niger. We are found throughout the South-South. Especially in Rivers and Delta State with some communities in Bayelsa.

The Ijaws learned from the Igbo and any person who says that the Igbo have not shown that we have the ability to fight is seriously deluded.

You insult 30+ million Igbos in Nigeria with your assertion.

I'm just being honest, man. That is my feeling. I am very concerned about the Nigerian military (Hausa owned), a bit concerned about the Delta militants, don't give a damn about Boko Haram, and don't give a damn about Biafran militants.

Basically, I don't think you can win a war against me when all of your wealth is in my hands. Hausa man doesn't have his weath in Yorubaland, Igboman does. It really is that simple.

BTW, this is why the Ijaw are so relatively powerful, all of the nations oil wealth can be easily attacked by them.

Again, it is not meant as an insult. I just don't think you guys are a credible threat. I could be wrong, but this is my analysis.

bk.babe97y:
I'm dying here! lol!  Look at the number of views compared to "replies". . . . They sneak in and and sneak out! Now his sister has exposed him they aint got much to say no more!

Yeah, it is really quite comical. This thread caused Environer to disappear from Nairaland. Poof, like a ghost! Running away to Ivory Coast like his Ojukwu.

^-- How much do these Beninese charge for labor, as compared to a Nigerian? Surely the cost difference cannot be that high? Or am I mistaken?

fstranger:
There is a difference between a mental fight and a physical one. The best fights are the ones you avoid because they've already been one psychologically. Yorubas have moved on from the archaic ways of fighting, comprising mainly of physical bloodsheds, to the 21st century method, comprising mostly of psychological warfare.

This is fstranger's way of admitting that he was kidding, just FYI.

@fstranger: Just as a word of advice, even if that event really did occur, you generally don't want to mention that sort of thing online. IP addresses are logged on this site and can be use to find you, if necessary (unless you are careful enough to use some sort of web anonymizer.)

Also, I'm assuming you are joking about what you did. Murdering innocent people due to their ethnicity is quite literally genocide, dude. Not really something to joke about.


@EzeUche0: The only SS or SE ethnic group imo who can make more than empty threats are the Ijaws. They've shown a willingness to sacrifice a lot for their cause. Biafrans have not. Moreover, as someone else said in this thread, if there is any chaos in Nigeria, it hurts the Igboman far more than anyone else. After all, most of us live in our home regions. You guys do not.

To be quite honest, unless you guys are willing to strap bombs to your chest, then I don't really find your threats credible.

I don't mind an increase in quantity. But I think private industry (by this, I really mean non-profits, say churches, foreign universities looking to expand here, etc) should be driving the increase in supply, not the federal gov't.

I need to step up my literature game. Too much time spent reading trash fantasy and sci-fi books, not enough time spent reading real literature

ROSSIKE: I would love to share your optimism. If Nigeria can become a non-sh!tty country, then I'll gladly put down my secessionist idealogy. All I want is a decent country for my people to live in, really.

DeLaRue:
according to CIA factbook, almost 70% is employed in agriculture (extraordinary!), though agric's contribution to GDP seems less than I'd read elsewhere.

Hrm, this is a good way to look at it, %age of people employed divided by fraction of GDP.

For those who studied economics, does GDP accurately capture "impact on the ground for the typical man"? I somehow feel that high oil GDP is not really indicative of how the average man is doing. Yet I suspect that in a rich agricultural society, the per capita GDP is going to reflect standards of living a bit more. Somehow, agricultural money spreads itself around a bit more than say oil does.

Does this concept exist in economics? If so, what is it called?

Thanks for the link. Looks like this report contains most of the recent information:
http://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/ext/latest_release/GDP_Q22010.pdf

Agriculture is roughly 41%+ of the economy, oil and gas roughly 16%.

Trade is about 18%.

Growth in agriculture last year was nearly 6%. Kind of interesting. . . and for me, counterintuitive.

Notice how silent the usual suspects have been in this thread. They tried hard to think of how they could attack BiafraNigeriaWorld.com as a Yoruba-owned tool, but of course failed. There is only so much the truth can be twisted, even by the intellectually dishonest minds of the usual suspects.

MShittu:
The commonwealth is kinda beneficial, as being in the commonwealth means that we have some special strange kinda connections with other commonwealth countries. We can trade with them more freely and stuff like that.

I think there might be literally zero benefits. How come none of us know of any? It is just a fake organization.

Gbawe:
Regardless of what we feel about the Commonwealth we can all agree we all wan't free and fair election that will put Nigeria on the path of progress. I personally would welcome more organisations bullying the GEJ Government , through threats of sanctions,  to conduct free and fair election. The more the merrier. It is what a nation full of callous leaders need . For now, I think we should praise the Commonwealth for its brave stance and hope that others , in the international community, will follow suit. Free and fair elections in Nigeria can change the entire Africa for the better. It is a project everyone , locally and internationally , should support.

I'm not pleased with their approach. Consider the way the US usually does things. They will release a statement saying, "At this crossroad in which Nigeria finds itself in, we hope that the will of the Nigerian people reflected in the results of the elections", etc, etc.
They do it like a prayer to God, not like a threat to an enemy.

I'm mostly knocking the Commonwealth for presentation. I do agree of course that fair elections are necessary. This doesn't mean I want to be spanked like a child if for reasons beyond the control of the Nigerian people they are not.

Sorta see what I'm saying? You can use positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement; the Commonwealth chose the latter.

Kobojunkie:
Here's another one for you . . . almost 50% of that growth comes from the Agricultural sector, the same that is now importing banana's among so many other things.

My well-informed Kobojunkie, you truly need to post more frequently going forward. That I did not know. Can you provide a citation for this?

And discuss what spurred the change? Why is agriculture growing so rapidly in Nigeria? Has something caused us to be more competitive, ?

7% economic growth? That actually isn't bad. I'm a bit impressed.

Kobojunkie: so reading this article (http://www.dailytech.com/US+Farmers+Realize+Disadvantages+of+Genetically+Engineered+Seed/article19802.htm) and especially the comments, it seems that most of the increased yield comes from the crops are pesticide-resistant, you can spray Roundup, and completely kill off the weeds.

If my labor costs are low, cant I get the same affect by just having my workers thoroughly weed the crops?

Secondly, I saw this paragraph:

"The technology has really been hyped up a lot," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, author of a 2009 study for the Union of Concerned Scientists, which concluded that yield increases have come mainly from conventional plant breeding. "Even on a shoestring, conventional breeding outperforms genetic engineering.

So in other words, just by breeding existing plants yourself (or buying seeds that have been bred), you can get most of the gain in yield. So perhaps it isn't strictly necessary to buy the genetically modified seeds that Monsanto and similar companies sell (which most be done one every year.)

tensor777:
NO, its not a one-time deal and therein lies the catch. How do you think companies like Monsanto would make their money which would justify and cover their high research and development costs

Indeed, I raised this concern on page 1 or 2 of this thread, but was not 100% sure.

tensor777:
There are issues with GM CROPS no doubt about that. However the main financial isssue is that the seeds have to be bought afresh at the beginning of  every planting season.

Yeah, I was afraid of this. I vaguely remembered that Monsanto does something screwy that makes it so that you have to buy from them every year. . .

Bleh.

MShittu:
But then there's still the problem with tropicalization. If you want to import from carribean countries then I assume that'd work, but I'm not sure. What I think gov't should do is start by building that R& lab and skip seed importation entirely.

There is bound to be at least one country with similar climate that is compatible. North American crops are unlikely to be great, but I suspect Brazilian or Indonesian will work well.

Kobojunkie:
R& is still in it's infancy in Nigeria so It makes more sense to purchase from elsewhere still. I know I would. I believe our farmers need some broker service to help connect them to the right groups out there.

Hrm. So most of the crops we grow here are likely grown in countries with similar climates. Say, India and Indonesia, as you said. So depending on the maturity of the market there, perhaps it won't be so hard to import at good prices.

Finally, is importing seeds a one-time deal, or not? If we could get high-yield seeds, grow and then harvest those seeds and never have to buy again, that would be perfectly fine. Fixed costs are OK. But if it is a recurring cost, then it makes things quite a bit more expensive long-term.

MShittu:
But if such seeds require so much money, then gov'ts gna need to do some serious subsidizing to allow the common farmer to get 'em, and, from what I gather, subsidies are bad and create unsustainable economies. U also gotta acknowledge what Aloy+Emeka said bout tropicalisation. Those american seeds might not work in Nigeria, and that's a real problem.

Hrm. They require a lot of money, but presumably the additional yield causes it to pay for itself. So I don't really see a reason to subsidize. A better thing for the gov't to do, rather than giving them money to subsidize imported seeds is to build an R& lab here so we can produce the seeds ourselves here cheaply. That is better longterm than paying someone else to develop them for you.

But in the short term, yeah, I think we'll need to just pay full price to import

Also, since you seem to know a lot about agriculture, can you suggest a book/other resource of some sort that discusses some of these issues? Despite being from Ekiti and descended from a long line of noble iyan farmers, I don't know much about farming at all

Thanks for the discussion btw Kobo, you've clarified the issues a lot for me.

MShittu:
Then we need laws in place!!!!
Tarrifs, Quotas, whatever it takes to nurture Nigerian agriculture.

Naw, what we need to do is to get our hands on those seeds

Kobojunkie:
In America, seeds are a billion dollar business, and No, farmers do not just go to the grocery store to buy a bag of corn so they can plant it. Farmers actually try to look for suppliers of high grade seeds to purchase from so they can get better yields for their money. If a farmer gets his hands on these seeds, he can harvest x times more than he planted. It is really interesting stuff. In places like indonesia, india, there are companies working on producing and selling high yield rice seeds to farmers around the world.

Our local farmers need to have some access to these in order to thrive.

I see. Hrm. So this suggests that there is a lot of room for improvement in the local farming industry.

How necessary is it to have our own R& labs for this? Or is it sufficient to purchase seeds from elsewhere? Also, I thought that Monsanto and the equivalents do something funky to the seeds to require you to purchase many many times from them, rather than only once?

Kobo, maybe I'm misunderstanding something here. But I referenced that large tomato farm in Arizona, a state that specifically has had water scarcity issues in the past. The wiki article also suggests that hydroponics uses a small fraction of the water ordinary techniques use. If this is the case, why would it not be appropriate for a place like northern nigeria, where techniques that don't use much water are likely to be of value?

EDIT: typo fixed

I think the high-yield seeds are sold by firms like Monsanto. I'm pretty sure they do something funky with them that requires you to purchase many, many times, rather than just buy once. I'm not completely sure of the specifics though, perhaps Kobo can fill us in

Also, why don't they have access to these seeds? Are they just more expensive, or not easy to get in Nigeria?

Kobojunkie:
Why would it be relevant to the north? I don't understand. The North has land for planting of crops and water scarcity up there is mostly due to politicians not doing their job at all. Hydroponics sets ups cost money and water. The problem of yield is likely because farmers do not have open access to higher yielding seeds and maybe water, not necessarily land in many of the cases I have researched in the past.

Yes, water is the issue. If you have arbitrary amounts of (free) water available to you, then hydroponics is less relevant. But even in Nigeria, where can you can get the enormous amounts of water to run a large farm, for free (or very cheaply)?

Kobojunkie: The hydroponics seems very relevant for the North. Consider this paragraph from the Wikipedia article:

The largest commercial hydroponics facility in the world is Eurofresh Farms in Willcox, Arizona, which sold 200 million kilograms of tomatoes in 2008.[13] Eurofresh has 318 hectares under glass and represents about a third of the commercial hydroponic greenhouse area in the U.S.[14] Eurofresh does not consider its tomatoes organic, but they are pesticide-free. They are grown in rockwool using the run to waste technique

Arizona, as you know, is mostly desert. So where do they get the water from, to grow so many tomatoes? Well:

Hydroponics also saves water; it uses as little as 1⁄20 the amount as a regular farm to produce the same amount of food. The water table can be impacted by the water use and run-off of chemicals from farms, but hydroponics may minimize impact as well as having the advantage that water use and water returns are easier to measure. This can save the farmer money by allowing reduced water use and the ability to measure consequences to the land around a farm.

That to me is quite impressive.