₦airaland Forum

raumdeuter:
They should spread this news in Abia so that everyone can vote in pdp there so the entire southeast can be fully pdp

Beef and veal export returns have reached a record high of $1.6 billion for the past six months, a jump of $480 million over the same period in 2013-14.

The premium prices exporters have received overseas have had an impact on the cost of beef on the domestic market, where shoppers now pay $27.28 a kilogram for sirloin steak, compared to $23.83 a year ago.

Lamb exports also rose in value in the six months to March 2015 by 2.2 per cent to $1.36bn, despite the fact less was sold.

Mutton exports failed to keep pace with beef, veal and lamb, with returns dropping 18 per cent, to $273m.

Beef + Lamb New Zealand said in releasing the figures that stronger demand and a weaker New Zealand dollar against the United States collar had led to the record 43 per cent higher beef and veal returns compared to last season.

Beef and veal exports reached 212,100 tonnes, up 12 per cent or 22,600 tonnes on the corresponding period last season. This reflected a high and early cattle processing season – particularly in relation to cull cows – and strong global demand for beef.

Beef + Lamb said the increase was mainly due to consistent high monthly volumes exported to the two main markets for New Zealand beef – the US and China – while volumes to other main markets fell.

Exports to the US climbed 33 per cent to 122,200 tonnes, while exports to China increased by 21 per cent to 21,000 tonnes in the first half of 2014-15.

Most of the increase came from processing beef used for grinding into hamburger meat, while exports of boneless cuts fell slightly. Processing beef and boneless cuts accounted for 54 and 34 per cent, respectively, of total beef and veal export volumes in the first six months of the 2014-15 season.

The average per tonne value of beef and veal exports rose 28 per cent, to $7540, compared with $5890 in the corresponding period last season. The average value of New Zealand beef and veal exports to the US and China increased by 40 and 21 per cent, respectively.

Even though New Zealand lamb export volumes fell by 2.9 per cent in the first six months of the 2014-15 season, they were worth $1.36bn, 2.2 per cent above last season's figure.

Lamb exports to the European Union, the largest market region for New Zealand lamb, were up 3.9 per cent, to 68,700 tonnes, compared with the same period last season. Exports to North Asia were down 8.5 per cent, to 47,500 tonnes, mainly driven by lower exports of carcases to China. Shipments to North America and the Middle East were up 2.0 and 0.9 per cent, respectively.

Over the first six months of the season, lamb exports averaged $8870 per tonne, up 5.2 per cent on the same period last season.

Less mutton was exported in the six months to March 2015, reflecting the fact that in the previous season, dry conditions and dairy expansions had led to a large cull of ewes. Exports fell by 18 per cent to 51,000 tonnes. Shipments remained 9.2 per cent above the five-year average for the period October to March of 46,700 tonnes.

Exports to North Asia slowed, while exports to the European Union, South Asia and North America increased. China bought 31,600 tonnes, or 30 per cent less mutton than the previous season.

The average value of mutton exports remained unchanged at $5350 per tonne.

The rise of women-only farming groups over the past year has brought the role of females within the industry to the fore. But what is the reality? Olivia Midgley reports

It is an undisputed fact there are more men working in the farming industry than women.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show 83 per cent (137,000) of the UK’s agricultural workforce is male, while 17 per cent (29,000) is female.

However, research by Farmers Guardian has revealed the number of women entering the sector has increased by 26 per cent in the last three years – proof more women than ever are carving out careers in a predominantly male-orientated industry.

While the figures represent women who are farming in their own right, an army of women – who for many years have undertaken background roles – have acted as the foundation for thousands of thriving family businesses.

Dairy farmer Kathleen Calvert, who farms with her husband Derrick in Lancashire, said: "Women’s role in agriculture has been underestimated for years, but often we are the lynchpin in the farming business which holds everything together."

An FG survey of more than 1,110 people showed while the future was positive for the sector’s women, work to entice the next generation was vital.

The FG study revealed the education system played a key role, with 84 per cent of respondents saying institutions could do more to encourage female new entrants.

More than 900 people (86 per cent) said it was important more women joined the sector.

The situation has led companies and organisations such as Asda and the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) to set up specialised groups to enable women to learn and share skills and experiences and discuss common industry issues.

These sit alongside groups, such as the Women’s Food and Farming Union (WFU), which work to promote British food and farming.

Asda agricultural manager Pearce Hughes believes these platforms help to boost the role of women in farming.

Mr Hughes said: “Women have always been a key part of the British farming industry, but for many years their role has been largely unrecognised.

"Today, many of the leading farmers are women and we at Asda feel it is important to recognise and promote this. Farming is an industry in need of fresh new talent and women have an increasingly important role to play in feeding the nation."


However, FG research found female-only groups may not be the answer, with 73 per cent saying they were not an ’appropriate vehicle’ and others slamming them as ’sexist’.

Jill Bathgate, a third-generation dairy farmer from Midlothian, said: "We are all on an even playing field and we all sell goods on the same market, so any form of segregation is a bad thing.

"There are more women farmers than you think and in a 10-mile radius from where I am I can think of five.

"However, I do not think we network well together. A lot keep themselves to themselves and often I find I am networking more with males."

Groceries Code Adjudicator Christine Tacon has held various roles within the industry and is a non-executive director of the Met Office and Anglia Farmers and ran the Co-operative Group’s farming business for 11 years.

She believes networking is key and has been instrumental in setting up the Ladies in Agriculture group which meets three times a year.

Mrs Tacon said: "We discuss business issues and are there to support each other and particularly a younger generation working in our industry, so we have a broad spectrum of experience in the membership.
"Networking for women is important because it can help women take the next step up the career ladder. It is basically what men in the industry have been doing for years."

Karen Baybutt, financial controller at Preston-based salad growers Alan Baybutt and Sons, said there were now ’more opportunities than ever’ for women.

She said: "As farming has become more commercially-orientated, the glass ceilings which perhaps held restrictions have been lifted and there are now far more opportunities within farming businesses for women to be actively involved.

"A third of our workforce is female and although they sometimes play a different role to men, their roles are just as vital. For example, on the financial and accounting side, compliance and human resources."

Ms Bathgate added: "Farming was once a man’s world because it was very much manual work, but this has changed so much in the last 20 years. Machinery now does a lot of the hard graft. For example, if I want to lift a 50kg seed bag, I will use a telehandler.

"The advancement of on-farm technology has massively opened up doors for women to enter the sector."

Nuffield scholar and farmer Jamie McCoy agreed agriculture should be seen as an ’equal opportunities’ industry.

She said: "We need to attract the best people into the sector, regardless of gender, age and experience or background.
"We want the best people for the jobs to create an industry fit for the challenges of the future. Fair wages, professionalism in the industry, good working conditions, opportunity for progression and flexibility are all vital.

"It has never occurred to me I should not aim to farm because I am female. In fact I would say the opposite. I remember the first time I realised I would never be a farmer’s wife, but I would be a farmer in my own right, and I am still following that dream."

ademega:
Yoruba people and ebo ... Bread and epa

Steven Worden is told the odds of one ewe giving birth to five lambs are one-in-a-million and it happens 'once in a generation'

A farmer has beaten odds of one-in-a-million to welcome a special delivery of five lambs born to one ewe.
The rare quintuplets have shocked Steven Worden, 26, and his wife Diana, 23, after being born at their farm.
Their Dorset X Mule ewe was due to have triplets, so after three new-borns arrived Mr Worden thought his work was done, and returned to the house.
But when Mrs Worden returned to check on the lambs an hour later she realised the mother had given birth to another two.
The National Farmer's Union said surviving quintuplets was extremely rare and it was a "once in a generation" experience.

The Wordens have had the sheep, known simply as 41, since opening their farm three years ago, and every lambing season so far she has given birth to two lambs.
And Mr Worden, from the Lizard, Cornwall, said they were shocked to have beaten some huge odds but delighted with the new additions to the farm.
He said: "I always go out to check on the sheep during the night. I checked at about 4am when I heard some bleating, and she was having difficulty so I gave her a hand.

"It can be difficult for sheep to birth more than one lamb. Usually you get a head and two feet, but if there is more than one another foot can get in the way and complicate things.
"She had been scanned, so were expecting three. When I had delivered the three I went back inside, thinking that my work was done.
"Then an hour later my wife went to check on the lambs and another two had popped out."
This is the most recent in a string of good luck for the farming duo, just days before the quintuplets were safely delivered they also delivered four lambs to one ewe.
Mr Worden said: "We thought we were lucky to get four lambs to one ewe, that was surprising enough.

"But to now get the quintuplets is unbelievable. We must be doing something right."
A spokesman for the National Farmers Union said: "Quintuplets are very rare and I bet it came as a real surprise especially as it was not picked up on the scans ahead of lambing.
"We hear a lot about twins and triplets that are born on farms, but surviving quintuplets are something very special and unusual.
"This sort of thing my be a once in a generation experience."

chinnyonwu:
look man u r not entitled to ur deranged opinion on this forum.
do you reason thru ur buttocks?
kindly deactivate your account

efilefun:
lmao, when the whole nation was clamoring for change you all were being tribalistic, rigging for you brother... now una don blindly rig python enter power... you can cry from now till eternity "kokan aiye" live with your cross you all asked for it.

solayd:
Though i m not advocating that OBJ perform exellent well during his time as president, but talking about his vast experience in helms of affair in the country he govern as millitary and civillian and you can't admit that he got everything wrong under his tenure there are some things he got right which incoming goverment can still learn from. more so in the record: He successfully handover government to civillian government, He defend the unity of Nigeria, Under his government we are free of debt and we are more united as a nation than we are now..

mulante:
I suspect that the APC government is going to introduce inheritance taxation in Nigeria. It's a good move with onerous implications for the tax payer. One could lose up to 40% or 60% of his inheritance depending on how benevolent or malevolent the lawmakers decide to be.

solayd:
"Love him" or "Hate Him" He remain father of nation
both of them know each other and work together before now

englishmart:
Obasanjo is a very bad influence to the nigerian democracy

By Ochereome Nnanna
FORMER President Obasanjo, as we can see, used the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to rule Nigeria for eight years. As soon as he assumed office in 1999, he made up his mind to reduce Nigeria to a one-party state, his pet party system which he canvassed vigorously while Nigeria conducted its transition to civil rule programmes.

The first part of this serial chronicled how he shrivelled the opposition parties and made the PDP into a colossus that dominated the political landscape. Eventually, most leading lights in the opposition parties decamped to the PDP.

By 2007 when Obasanjo was constitutionally forced out of power, PDP was at the zenith of its power and glory. It had 26 out of the 36 governors, 260 out of the 369 members of the House of Representatives, 85 out of the 109 senators and an emphatic command of the majority in the state legislatures and the 774 local councils. It was at this point that the party started priding itself as “the largest party in in Africa”, and some of its chieftains boasted that the PDP would rule Nigeria for “sixty years”.

The size of the Party was largely as a result of Obasanjo’s repression of the opposition parties, which became unattractive for politicians tocontest for power. The party was so powerful that Obasanjo suddenly developed an ambition to grab extra terms of office for himself when he was nearing the end of his constitutional two terms. To succeed, he nullified the membership of the party and ensured that all party members were re-registered. This, of course, ensured that those Obasanjo did not want in the party were weeded. These included former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Governor of Abia State, Chief Orji Kalu.

When his tenure elongation plans failed, Obasanjo put his Plan “B” into effect. He opted to unilaterally install his successor in office. He chose a terminally ailing Governor Umaru Yar’ Adua of Katsina state for president and paired him with a quiet, self-effacing Governor of Bayelsa State, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as Vice President. He also planted his cronies as governors of the various states. He even planted them in opposition parties.

A case in point was in Imo, where the Obasanjo ordered the PDP to withdraw from the governorship race and support Chief Ikedi Ohakim, who had decamped from PDP when he failed to get the ticket at the primaries and ran on the ticket of the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA).

Obasanjo’s ambition, at this juncture, was to become the Life Leader of the PDP, such that he could wield great political influence and lord it over the occupants of Aso Villa from Ota or Abeokuta.
The plan ran into storms, however. When Yar’ Adua assumed power, he refused to dance to Obasanjo’s tunes. He was determined to leave a legacy of his own. Obasanjo was not given any space to maneouvre. But unfortunately, Yar’ Adua became seriously sick and died in 2010. Obasanjo jumped out of his political doghouse and started prompting Jonathan to run on his own terms in 2011, even though many northern leaders preferred that he allowed one of theirs to replace him.

Soon, Obasanjo found out he had lost his place in the PDP even under Jonathan. It was so bad he was almost ignominiously booted out of his Board of Trustees Chairman post. In the middle of 2013, he resigned from the post. President Jonathan was later on to describe Obasanjo as “a goat seller who, after selling his goat, refuses to release the rope”. The Ota-born chicken farmer went home and started the war that led, ultimately, to the end of PDP’s reign.

In January 2014, he published one of his series of scandalous open letters to President Jonathan, accusing him of every abominable sin under the sun, including training snipers to kill his political opponents. A man under whose watch many prominent people were murdered was accusing a president who never recorded a single such incident in his five and half years as President!

Between April and May 2014, Obasanjo went round many states of the North and persuaded some of the governors he planted in power to run for president to replace Jonathan. Some of these were: Governors Sule Lamido of Jigawa, Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano, Magatakarda Wamakko of Sokoto and Babangida Aliyu of Niger. Some of these OBJ-made governors were at the forefront of the rebellion against Jonathan.

The tipping point came when five of the rebel governors decamped from PDP and joined the newly amalgamated All Progressives Congress (APC) which was put together by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and General Muhammadu Buhari.

From that point on, the rapid emaciation of the PDP could no longer be stopped. Obasanjo was relentless in his attacks on Jonathan. Apart from writing public letters, he also nudged some of his out-of-work former ministers, such as Oby Ezekwesili, Nasir el Rufai and lately, Charles Soludo, to slam the Jonathan administration each time they got the chance to go public. Obasanjo climaxed his choreography with the public tearing of his PDP membership card a couple of months to the presidential election.

Of course, PDP’s fall from power under the watch of President Jonathan was further helped by the President’s failure to take decisive steps when and where he needed to. This made him subject to blackmail. Jonathan surrounded himself with people who posed as his lovers but were actually deceivers. They took whatever they could from him and abandoned him when he needed them most. Matters were not helped by his sloppy handling of the Boko Haram insurgency, which grew from a small pox on the nose to a plague that wracked the whole nation.

Perhaps, if Jonathan had been a little more in charge and decisive, he would have prevented some of the little problems that ballooned to decide for him only one term in office. But Obasanjo was the headwind that chipped away, unchallenged, at the pedestal of his presidential power.