BOOM!

O/P: Stop being lazy and do some diligent research. Everybody will sell you their mothers secret soup "ingredient" if you are not careful.

lordhugo:


Yes.

However, we have measures in place.

Basil, marigolds are example of pest repellant crops we plant.

You can reach me to get seeds also. All kinds.

[size=14pt]Herbs Ants Hate[/size]

There are a number of herbs that naturally repel ants. By planting these herbs in your garden, you can cut down the presence of ants. Plant them around the areas you specifically want to protect, or near doors and windows to keep them from entering your home. Anything pungent, such as basil or sage, will help repel ants when planted around your garden. Those below work especially well.

Mint – Ants hate mint, especially peppermint. This makes it a great deterrent. The only complication is that mint is an insidious grower that will take over any ground it is placed in. So chose locations for mint carefully and monitor its growth if you don't want it in your entire garden.

Tansy – Growing tansy will work much the same way growing mint does to deter ants. It also produces lovely yellow flowers on tall stems that can be a good compliment to your flower garden. Unfortunately, it grows and spreads to fill an area almost as fast as mint.

Pennyroyal - Pennyroyal is used in repellents for a number of different types of insects, including ants. As a relative of mint it does tend to invade the entire garden if not kept in close check. However, the sweet scent and soft lavender flowers in season may make growing pennyroyal worth the extra work to restrain it.

Ants Hate Marigolds

There are a few flowers that are known to deter ants from their area. One of the best known is the marigold. Plant a few of these around the borders of your garden or near plants you want really well protected. Marigolds have the advantage of minimal expansion. However, they are annuals who have to be replaced yearly.

Coffee Grounds Deter Ants

If you're a coffee drinker, don't throw out your used grounds. Coffee grounds have two uses when added to your garden soil. Nutrients in your coffee grounds will feed your plants, and the caffeine will repel ants. Sprinkle a ring of grounds around a tree or plant you specifically want to protect. Or, till some coffee grounds into the soil around the boarder of your garden.

Citrus Peels

Another item to add to the soil around your plants is citrus peels. Grind peels from any citrus fruit up to release the oils that repel ants and make it easy to distribute evenly. Add it to the soil in a circle around a specific tree or plant much like with coffee grounds. For even better success, try combining citrus peels with coffee grounds.

Ants Love Cornmeal

That might sound like a poor reason to sprinkle cornmeal around, but in fact it's an excellent one. Ants love the sweet taste of cornmeal, but cannot digest it. If you want to starve them out rather than just deter them, sprinkle cornmeal around your garden, or near the entrance to any ant colony you can find. Ant activity will spike for a few days, but should decrease after that. Add more cornmeal after it rains and whenever you see more ants.

culled from: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/how-to-deter-ants-from-the-garden#b

Welcome Freshdews!

leunamme93:

Hello Sir,
For bookings, enquiries and clarification, please contact:
SnailCare Farm
8, Omotosho close off Akoberu road, Okokomaiko, Lagos State
Call: 08066104430, 080110505865.

I have a small tip. You might not need to do any adverts nor solicit for business if you can do any of the following:

1. Upload a picture of your snails going to the market, or being supplied to a client.
2. Upload a picture of your snails already packaged for export being loaded in a container ship or a freight plane; or being picked up by a freight forwarder.

Just like magic I swear you will not be able to handle the numerous messages that will inundate your inbox nor the hordes of people that will visit your office for a share in the largess.

Preach!

KayTash:
Chaii
This kwuruption fa,the children should be arrested.

I have not laughed so hard in a long while. You are %^&*()(!

lordhugo:


I will send a member of staff or if your location is close to me at the time, I will come personally.

Buzz me....

Pic below is a current project..

12 plots (2 acres) of free range snails..

I am the first to attempt mechanized snail farming in Nigeria.

Have you heard of Obasanjo Farms?

mekaboy:
Buhari can't sack him because buhari and his economic team have no clue or solution to our economic problems. By default emefiele will try to suspend the economy in the air for a while while buhari and his economic team provide a cushion under it, then he let's it down.

Unfortunately, emefiele has been holding the economy up for so long waiting for buhari them to put the cushion under it, but they are running helter-skelter. Emefiele's hands have become swollen, tired and weak. He is playing the role of a goal keeper in the post without his team mates, the opponents are firing shots at him left right and center scoring anyhow.

Soon he will drop the economy(devalue naira without diversification ) and Nigerians will cry.

#Pray4Nigeria

You display a very apt understanding of the situation. The government is yet to provide a clear policy direction for the CBN to follow. I pity Emefiele!

We are drowning in cassava and cassava products. Nigeria might not be a good market for your products though

@Farmtech,

This is admirable. You can also try it with Black Solder Fly (BSF), the flies do not have mouth openings and are therefore considered more sterile (safer) and non disease transmitting.

February 10, 2016 • 1:30 PM EST
By Rhitu Chatterjee


Two women walk between rows of pumpkin plants in the outskirts of Promissão, a small agricultural town about 300 miles north of São Paulo. One of them, Donna Marinova, who is in her 50s, owns this farm. Her companion is Joise Lopes, 38. Together, the two women run a farmers’ cooperative in this farming community.

A few brown cows graze in the fields nearby as Lopes and Marinova head towards a cluster of tall, woody cassava plants. They stop by a couple of taller plants, bend down and pull out the roots with their bare hands.

“This is manioc,” says Lopes, holding out the tubers in her hands. They are brown, covered in dirt, except for the bright white flesh where they were torn from the roots. These women will sell the tubers to local public schools to be used in school meals. Public schools have become a regular source of income for the 20 or so farmers in their cooperative.

In the past, they had to depend heavily on middle men to sell their produce. “We had to accept whatever they offered, or we would lose everything,” Lopes says. But for the past three years, she says farmers like her have been able to bid directly with the city government to supply local schools. It's been a big help, Lopes says. “There were times we didn’t have anything, and suddenly a little bit of money came in from the school meals program and I’d say “Oh, God, this money is so good and it came at the right time,” she says.

Brazil’s National School Feeding Program feeds every student enrolled in the public school network, says Eduardo Manyari, the international advisor for the program. “We’re talking about 42 million students each day.” In the city of São Paulo alone, 900,000 students are fed every day through the school meal program, says Danuta Chmielewska, an education official in Sao Paulo city who works on the city’s school feeding program. “We serve around two million meals per day. If you think about how much food we need to buy to provide the food, it is a huge market.”

The market has been traditionally dominated by big food companies and middle men who buy produce from small farmers at negligible prices and sell for higher profits. Until recently, family farmers like Lopes and Marinova didn’t have access. “It’s not just payment,” Chmielewska says. “Many times, the farmers are not seen, like invisible people. They work hard, every day, from Monday to Monday, and many times they are not recognized.”

Brazil is better known for its big industrial farms, which grow sugarcane, coffee, oranges, and soy, all for exporting. It’s a top exporter for some of these commodities. And yet, most of the food Brazilians eat is grown by family farmers. But most of them are poor and uneducated and struggle to compete with bigger, industrial farms and food companies. Many farmers have given up, moving to cities in search of jobs and a better life.

That’s why in 2009, the government passed a law requiring cities to spend at least 30 percent of their school meal budget on produce from family farmers. The law was based on the older Public Acquisition Program, which allows small farmers to sell a part of their produce directly to local governments.

“The idea that we have now, is a way to buy directly from family farmers,” Chmielewska says, so that a section of the market is reserved just for them. This has helped local family farmers, she says, while also improving the quality of school meals.
“In 2013, for the first time we bought rice from family farmers, and even better, we bought organic rice for the whole school feeding program,” she says. The city continues to use organic rice for school meals even though it is 30 percent more expensive than regular rice. But the “law allows a higher price for better quality.”

The program has become an example for other developing countries that are also trying to boost local agriculture while providing food and nutrition security to students in poor communities. However, implementing the law hasn’t been easy, admits Chmielewska. “For example, here in São Paulo, the first purchase from a family farmer was in 2012,” she says, three years after the law was passed. There aren’t enough farmers near São Paulo city to meet the demands of the city’s schools, she says, and it has taken time and effort to reach out to farmers living farther away.

Many cities still don’t buy the minimum required from family farmers. Corruption and lack of political will can get in the way. Big food companies and big farmers, sometimes called the “meals mafia” here, bribe their way into winning the bids.
Some of the farmers are just too poor to participate in the program, says Bernardo Mançano Fernandes, an expert on agrarian reform and rural development at the State University of São Paulo. “Today, to produce you need technology. These people don’t have capital, [and] don’t have money.” Families who are slightly better off have been able to take advantage of the program, he says.

Back in Promissão, Lopes has just returned to her three-bedroom house after an hour washing, cutting and packaging pieces of cassava at her small vacuum packaging plant next door. She is eager to show me her house, which she recently finished expanding. The wrap-around porch is new, she tells me, the floor still wet with fresh cement. Inside, the walls look newly painted. The extra money she has been making by selling to local schools has gone into home improvements, Lopes says. “I added a new room for my son, an attached bathroom for my bedroom, and I finished the kitchen,” she says.

Managing the cooperative and supplying public schools has also taught her new skills. “It has taught me how to work with the producers, and have a way of talking to them,” she says. She also had to learn how to handle documents and deal with bureaucracy. “It has inserted me to into public power,” she adds, looking proud. “I am a member of the rural municipal council because of my cooperative. I learned how to have a dialogue with people in power."

That afternoon, I visit her at work in her sister’s home up the road from her house. The entire family is busy, preparing for a delivery to schools. They line up big, green crates on the porch and label each one with the name of a school and the order. Lopes, in shorts and a cotton top, is clearly in charge. Holding papers that have the details of this week’s orders, she reminds family members what they need to supply and who will bring what. “One school wants five kilos of eggplants,” she says, and the family will supply them. When the crates are filled, a rented truck will deliver them to schools. The cooperative will soon get their own delivery truck with a government grant Lopes applied for, which means higher profits.

It takes a lot of organization and financial planning, Lopes says. But she loves every bit of it. “People make fun of me,” she says. “But I like to go after a project, deliver it, and go to the meetings. This is what I like to do.”

“You’re a successful businesswoman,” I say. “Yes, I am,” she says, laughing. “I consider myself one.”



This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

culled from: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-10/brazils-school-lunch-program-putting-food-table-countrys-small-farmers)

Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access.

Hello OP,

Kindly re-confirm the stainless steel part of your post. It appears that the equipment have been sprayed painted instead.

Welldone @Afrocatalyst. Thinking outside the box.

A word of advice: Treat the supporting wooden pillars and protect them from termite infestation. I learnt the hard way.

Maybe I am missing something.

An Energy Summit NOT a Climate Change Summit.

Our president effectively went on window shopping without bringing any goodies back!

SoEndowed:
I built my snail pens over 5 years ago but I have never put in a single snail.. but now come d raining season on 2016, I'm finally bold enough to leave my frustrating job to be a snail farmer. Sir, thanks so much as I shall be reaching u for mentorship & training.

Lady Luck favours the bold. Wishing you a profitable and successful journey.

asEdeyHOT:
So Jonathan's cousin is a commissioner?

The monster Gej created is now fighting him

Obasanjo's daughter was also made a commissioner while he was President. Sometimes people want to curry your favour as a president.

Bossforeva:
Starttells reports interesting stories of the Social Network.
Op is living in Birmingham for those asking

You write beautifully. Please keep it coming. More ......

Teempakguy:
This I don't agree with.

I've researched the act and it doesn't have any effects whatsoever. either medical or physical or emotional. it's a normal act in people.

he only has guilt because of religious indoctrination. that sexual activity is bad and is a sin. masturbation is not the only act frowned upon, in deeply religious communites, any act of scientific inquiry is frowned upon as bad and evil and students often feel guilt for questioning religious dogmas. something which is absolutely normal! there are some african tribes that actually participate in open masturbation and all these activities, and they are quite healthy. even animals do masturbate.(and these ones can get partners very easily!)

If he is going to stop masturbating, it should be a personal act of principle. not because he's trying to "avert" some none existent consequence.

Quite to the contrary, a close study of the website: [www.yourbrainonporn.com] will reveal that people with the addiction from less than a year to more than 30 years report the following observations:

Social exclusion (Do not socialise readily)
Erectile Dysfunction
Premature Ejaculation
Delayed Ejaculation
Brain Fogginess
Memory Loss
Lack of Concentration
Chronic Procrastination
Chronic Mood swings
Suicidal Thoughts
Lack of Motivation
Loss of jobs (most were sacked)
Divorces (spouses left the marriage)

The other category of addicts, graduate and become child molesters, serial killers (Ted Bundy; google him!), some straight people start trying gay stuff. Lots of different and funny end results. It almost does not end well.

menesheh:


Research well, there's little or no harm associated with masturbation. Stop listening to conspiracy theorists and unsubstantiated assertions by people who gather no data but are positing stuffs they know nothing about.

Follow expert research that's consistently been tested bearing same results each time.

Quite to the contrary, a close study of the website: [www.yourbrainonporn.com] will reveal that people with the addiction from less than a year to more than 30 years report the following observations:

Social exclusion (Do not socialise readily)
Erectile Dysfunction
Premature Ejaculation
Delayed Ejaculation
Brain Fogginess
Memory Loss
Lack of Concentration
Chronic Procrastination
Chronic Mood swings
Suicidal Thoughts
Lack of Motivation
Loss of jobs (most were sacked)
Divorces (spouses left the marriage)

The other category of addicts, graduate and become child molesters, serial killers (Ted Bundy; google him!), some straight people start trying gay stuff. Lots of different and funny end results. It almost does not end well.

There are millions of men (young and old) who are battling this addiction all over the world. The real culprit is your brain/bodies addiction to these chemicals: Dopamine and oxytocin.

You can learn a thing or two with lots of success stories online. Visit http://yourbrainonporn.com/

WHAT IS THE WEST AFRICA FOOD MARKETS (WAFM)?

The West Africa Food Markets Pilot Programme (WAFM) is a five-year DIFD-funded initiative implemented by a Palladium-led consortium of partners (Palladium, Carana Corporation, KPMG, and Saana Consulting).


Challenge fund


The Challenge Fund aims to invest in business models that will strengthen national and regional trade for targeted staple foods: maize, millet, sorghum and cassava. Businesses or companies are invited to bid based on rules that are set and publicized. These rules cover eligibility, the bidding process and how bids will be evaluated. To maintain transparency, ensure fairness and integrity and maximise efficiency, four separate bodies administer the process and decide on who gets funding. These are: the Challenge Fund Management Team (CFMT), the Internal Review Committee (IRC), the Independent Assessment Panel (IAP), and the Programme Steering Committee (PSC).

The intention is to get funds to businesses or companies that truly need them and can use them effectively. The funds are to help the companies realize the broader aims of the programme, which are to increase availability of staple foods, increase purchasing power of farmers and consumers in food-insecure regions of the Sahel as well as their resilience to hunger and malnutrition during the regular hungry seasons and periodic shocks.

WAFM Challenge Fund runs competitions for for-profit private companies only. These companies are invited to submit proposals outlining the business idea or concept for which they are applying for funding.

Funding Round 2: What are we looking for?

The WAFM Challenge Fund seeks to fund companies that stimulate cross-border trade in staplefoods through core business activity. Alongside the overall criteria, WAFM is looking to fund business models in Round 2 that aim to achieve one or more of the following objectives:

Increase processing and supply chain capacity in collaboration with smallholders
Increase trading capacity in collaboration with smallholders
Support the application of ICT interventions that address supply chain concerns
Increase warehousing capacity across all countries with inventory credit/warehouse receipts

Please clearly state which of the above objectives your company / project will achieve. Please note applications will be marked on the strength of the proposal and do not necessarily need to cover more than one of the above objectives.

Fortified Staplefood Products: To meet with the overall WAFM objectives we encourage applications that include producing, processing or trading fortified staplefood products.

Applying

Project Concept Note submission

At the beginning of each competition, the Programme Management Unit (PMU) launches a call for Project Concept Notes (PCNs) and publicises it.

The PCN is a short summary of the business idea proposed and its commercial viability, the capacity of the company to implement the idea, the innovative nature of the idea and its potential impact. The call for concept notes details the objective of the competition, the particular type of projects expected and the Evaluation Criteria to guide the applicants.

Concept Note review and short-listing

Once the PCN have been submitted, they pass through a three-step selection process with the most promising selected to fully develop their proposal. This process is managed by the WAFM Challenge Fund Management Team and its Internal Review Committee.

Eligibility

The eligibility check is carried out based on the following five (05) criteria listed and discussed in the manual, with specific assigned weights:

The applicant must be a for-profit-company.
The project must focus on activities that directly or indirectly stimulate cross-border trade of staplefood commodities.
The project must be working in the target staple foods value chains (maize, sorghum, millet and cassava).
The grant amount requested must be between GBP 100,000 and GBP 1m.
There is a requirement of co-financing of at least the same amount by the applicant.
The applicant will have to meet all eligibility criteria. Ineligible applications are declined and a feedback letter sent to the applicant. Limited comments will be provided to unsuccessful applicants and they may be requested to contact the PMU where they require additional information.
Being Selected

Being selected is the first of a three-part second stage of the funding process. It is structured in 6 steps. During this stage, WAFM Challenge Fund Management Team (CFMT) engages with and visits all companies preparing proposals. The final proposals are presented to the Independent Assessment Panel (IAP) followed by the Programme Steering Committee (PSC) for approval of projects that will win the competition.

Proposal Development
Applicants of PCNs short-listed will be provided with WAFM Challenge Fund Project Proposal templates and invited to submit a detailed proposal online via WAFM website or by email and within the stipulated deadline. Guidance on proposal length and details will be provided in the template.

Business Support and Due Diligence
During proposal development WAFM will undertake a robust due diligence process involving meeting key individuals, reviewing key documentation and, if necessary and applicable, conducting walk-through testing and limited sample testing.

Alongside this process WAFM Business Consultants will undertake a visit to the company location to provide technical support in proposal development. This will include reviewing your business plan, governance structure and other management requirements. This process is as much an assessment as it is an opportunity to provide recommendations to strengthen your proposal.

Submission, Evaluation and Selection
Once submitted, applicant proposals will be reviewed against key criteria and presents completed proposals to an Independent Advisory Panel (IAP). The IAP then evaluates the applications and makes a recommendations to the UK AID Project Steering Committee for projects to receive funding. This decision will include approval for funding, alongside terms and conditions for each selected project.

Evaluation Criteria

Cross-border trade: The project must facilitate and/or undertake trade along the following trade corridors: Ghana-Burkina Faso, Nigeria-Niger, and must involve production and/or marketing of maize, cassava, sorghum and millet.

Innovation: The project must demonstrate innovation and should have the potential to be scaled up.

Development Impact: The ultimate beneficiaries of the project must be poor farmers in WAFM countries and consumers who will benefit from reduced or more stable prices for staple food. Given WAFMs interest on women beneficiaries, projects are required to disaggregate data on their beneficiaries by gender.

Additionality: The applicant must demonstrate that without WAFM funding, the project is unlikely to take off, or it may happen but at a reduced scale.

Being Awarded

Once awarded funding, successful businesses are informed and will receive guidelines on the process leading to the finalisation of the contract and fund disbursement. They will also be invited for an Induction Workshop prior to contract signing. The contracting process is followed by reporting and disbursement of funds.

Induction workshop
The induction workshop introduces post-award processes and procedures, particularly claiming and accounting process as well as progress reporting, monitoring and measurement of development impact. It also provides an opportunity for grantees to network and share lessons.

Contracting Process
The contracting stage officially commences when the PSC has approved the project proposal for funding. Grantees will each be given a grant agreement template to review terms and conditions, including the contract period, the disbursement schedule and the obligations to commit to by the grantee in terms of reporting and adherence to the terms of the contract. Depending on the amendments an applicant will request on the terms and conditions of the grant agreement, a revised agreement may need to be submitted to the PSC for approval.

Disbursement Process
The Fund Manager facilitates this process while Palladium actualises disbursements. Grantees report on project progress as they request a disbursement in line with the disbursement schedule agreed with the Challenge Fund Manager during contracting. Not more than 35% of approved funds per project will be released in a single disbursement. In addition, not more than 65% of funds approved will be disbursed in the first year. Exceptions to these rules will have to be approved by the PSC.



The project leaflet is attached here for download. Good Luck!

My suspicion is that Farmed Mackerel may not retail cheaper than wild caught fish. I have seen videos of trawlers catching entire schools of mackerel. Its not a fair competition. I might be wrong though.

I am about to fence 1 acre of farmland (4000sq meters) and was also wondering how much this would cost. Please could those that have done this before share their experiences.

dorothybruce953:
New York Times reported on populist up there none dare call it Vigoraflo conspiracy or stuff like that classics like us to denies Liberty moment but job bin Laden suppose he was reading bloodlines a woman Rd available at him for store dot com exclusively we also sell on .

http://www.idolizeadvancedeyeserumfacts.com/vigoraflo/

This Sapele Weed is really strong!

By Zia Morales/World Bank

Gideon Anaba has been up since dawn, checking on soon-to-be hatched guinea keets, feeding grown guinea fowl and tending to customers who have come to buy eggs and birds. Ever since he retired from active service, the 64-year-old’s days have been fuller than ever. And it’s no wonder, because increasing demand has turned what was once a part-time pursuit into a booming business.

“In local restaurants, people prefer guinea fowl to imported poultry meat”, says Anaba, a guinea fowl farmer in Boku, Ghana. A favorite at roadside barbecue stands and upscale restaurants throughout Ghana, the nutritious and low-fat guinea fowl represents a lucrative business for smallholder farmers who want a low-maintenance livestock to raise.

The World Bank’s West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP), which works with researchers, farmers and others to build a food system to feed every African, is growing the guinea fowl industry into an engine of job creation in rural Ghana. Over the past two years, WAAPP has helped 80 guinea fowl farmers in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions of Ghana scale up operations. It has also revitalized production of a homegrown vaccine to combat Newcastle disease, a virus that is deadly to poultry. More than 38 million doses of the vaccine have been released to 137,400 farmers since 2013, and the vaccine is now being exported to other West African countries, including Niger and The Gambia.

Every WAAPP beneficiary receives a starter kit that includes financial support, an incubator, generator, 500 eggs, dewormer, feed and vaccines. Beneficiary farmers also receive regular visits from agricultural trainers who teach them how to care for birds so that more survive. Incubators and techniques such as housing birds to protect them from hawks have boosted the production rate of guinea fowl by more than 500%. With WAAPP assistance, farmers can now produce between 600 and 800 birds per quarter, up from less than 100 birds per year.

This can be transformational for small guinea fowl farms, where the survival rate can make or break the business.

With more birds and eggs to sell, Anaba has built an enterprise that provides employment in his community and opportunities to his family. "Before WAAPP gave us technologies and techniques to protect our birds from predators and disease, I couldn't make more than 100 birds a year. Now our losses are very few—this year alone we had over 800 birds so I hired people to help me," he says. "Thanks to income from this business, I paid my children's university bills without going in for a loan."

WAAPP-Ghana's guinea fowl program is designed so that beneficiary farmers also support others in their community. Each WAAPP-sponsored farmer is paired with an aspiring guinea fowl farmer, to whom he provides guidance and access to resources. For a low fee, WAAPP beneficiaries also rent out space in their incubators to farmers who want to hatch their eggs. Entire communities of guinea fowl farmers have thrived as a result, with up to 50,000 people benefiting from WAAPP’s initial investment in just 80 farmers.

"Agriculture is already one of Ghana’s biggest employers, but the energy and optimism that fuels the sector means that it can have an even bigger impact," says Henry Kerali, Country Director, Ghana. "The Bank is supporting Ghana's guinea fowl industry because it’s ripe for expansion--it has the potential to create thousands of jobs, earn revenue by selling to the local and international market and help alleviate poverty."

Recognizing the industry’s potential, a community of dozens of farmers from near and far has sprung up around Adamu Mubarik, a 34-year-old guinea fowl farmer from Garu Tempane, "I get calls from Kongo, Basunde, every corner of this district," he says. "They want to hatch their eggs using the incubator or buy eggs or aguinea keet. They've heard of the farm and want to see what I’m practicing here." Mubarik, who received a starter kit from WAAPP in 2013 and now produces up to 3,200 birds a year, is keen to put others on the path to success. He incubates eggs for other farmers for as low as 20 pesewas or US$ 0.05 cents per egg and advises young people on how to get started as a guinea fowl farmer.

Mubarik pays it forward because he knows what it's like to face a dearth of opportunity-a challenge shared by many ambitious, hardworking youth in Africa. He was once a university graduate who had difficulty finding a job and was forced to rely on his uncle in Accra for support. Now, he's an entrepreneur who is single-handedly sending his sister to university, providing for his family and expanding his business to create jobs and serve the needs of his district. Mubarik's success makes him a role model for young people who have the drive to make it on their own. "Guinea fowl is an industry that is lucrative for every young man to go into. This is an area you can make profit," he says. "Young men should go into guinea fowl rearing-- it can really change your lives."

culled from: http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/10/12/a-taste-for-guinea-fowl-could-hatch-thousands-of-jobs-in-ghana

The West African country is poised to surpass India as the world's top grower of cashews. Ivory Coast output has tripled in the past decade, including a jump after the civil war ended in 2011, industry data show. At the same time, prices have rallied as global exports surged along with rising consumption in the U.S., China and India. Long a staple in Asian cooking, the nut increasingly is eaten raw as a snack, and companies like WhiteWave Foods Co. use it to make non-dairy beverages and ice cream.

While people still consume far more peanuts -- not technically a nut but treated like one -- cashews have become a relative bargain among tree nuts such as pistachios, walnuts and hazelnuts. Almonds surged to records over the past two years during a prolonged drought in California, the biggest grower. Ivory Coast, already the world's top cocoa exporter, saw the value of its cashew shipments rise almost 50 percent this year to become the nation's second-most valuable crop. "Cashew nuts are now the cheapest tree nuts on the market," Pierre Ricau, an agriculture market analyst at N'Kalô Market Intelligence Services of Rongead, a non-profit providing agriculture assistance in developing countries, said in an interview from Lyon, France. "The snack market keeps developing, but the industry has the wind in its sails when it comes to ingredient usage."

The global cashew market last year was valued at $4.69 billion, compared with $8.32 billion for almonds, $7.33 billion for pistachios, and $6.45 billion for walnuts, according to the International Nut & Dried Fruit Council.

Rising incomes in the emerging economies of Asia are a major driver of cashew demand, especially in India, where the nut is ground to a paste for curries and sweets. Demand in the country, which also processes raw cashews for export, more than doubled to 240,000 metric tons of kernels since 2004, according to the African Cashew Initiative in Accra, Ghana. In China, purchases reached 50,000 tons, up from almost nothing a decade ago.

Imported trees

"The market has undergone huge change," said Rita Weidinger, executive director at the ACI. "The production cannot keep up, meaning there is limited stock available."

Cashews aren't native to Ivory Coast. Trees were imported in the 1960s to reforest the arid northern provinces to prevent the encroaching Sahara desert. They were mostly ignored as a commercial crop until the 1990s, when impoverished northern farmers sought alternatives to soil-damaging crops like cotton and yams. Cocoa is grown mostly in the south.

Expansion of the cashew industry has aided economic recovery following a decade-long civil war that divided a rebel- held north from the government-controlled south. A disputed election in 2010 sparked five months of violence and 3,000 deaths. Since 2011, the economy expanded 9 percent annually on average, and the government is targeting 10 percent this year.

"Cashews give hope to the north," Malamine Sanogo, head of the industry regulator, the Cashew & Cotton Council, said in an interview from Abidjan. "Everybody recognizes that living conditions have improved."

Ivory Coast production reached 625,000 tons of cashews in shells as of June 30, compared with 185,000 tons in 2005, council data show. Next year, the country aims to produce 700,000 tons and pass India by 2017, Sanogo said. The country still doesn't have much processing capacity, so it ships mostly nuts in shells, which are removed at plants in Asia and then sold as kernels domestically or re-exported.

Prices paid to farmers averaged 410 CFA francs (69 cents) per kilo in 2015, up 37 percent from the previous year. The rally helped boost export earnings from cashews to 327 billion CFA francs in the season that ended this June, about 50 percent more a year earlier, government data show.

Nalourou Kone, a 47-year-old farmer in the northern town of Dianra, says the cashew money is changing how people live. Villagers are buying motorcycles instead of bicycles and houses made of brick rather than straw. His 10-hectare (25-acre) farm earned 5.2 million CFA Francs this year, triple what he got in 2010, and now he's planning to expand by 20 hectares.

"It has changed many things in my life," said Kone, who used to drive tractors for rice farms before he started growing cashews. "It has helped me get my children to school and build a small house."



culled from: http://www.worldcrunch.com/business-finance/african-cashew-farmers-cash-in-on-lactose-intolerant-americans/c2s19820/

Failure to stand independently

Things have not been going according to plan for President Buhari. For the last four months since his famous victory, the president has been engaged in a battle royal with the very people who put him in power. In order to win the last presidential election, Buhari had to form an alliance with wily politicians of the old-school; men seasoned at getting their hands dirty and adept at manipulating the system to power and political advantage.

Buhari had tried to make it without these men in the past, but without success. On his third attempt in 2011, he opted for Tunde Bakare as his running mate. Bakare is not a politician but a man of known integrity: a radical Christian pastor to boot. Nevertheless, Buhari still lost by 10 million votes to the lesser-known Goodluck Jonathan.

Having supper with satan

In 2015, he chose Yemi Osinbajo as his running-mate, another man of integrity and, yet again, a Christian pastor. But there was something different this time around. He agreed to dine with known political devils. He formed an alliance with the very political elite he had long despised. These are men who know the crooked ropes of the Nigerian political system. They know how to finance a nationwide campaign with funds obtained magically; no questions asked. They know how to buy and manipulate the press. They know how to conjure votes with the sleight of hand.

With their help, Buhari finally became president against all the odds. The million naira question then became how he would rule alongside these strange bedfellows. How is he going to be their anointed president without becoming one of them? How is he going to be president without becoming another politician? How can he become president through the help of these men without becoming hostage to them in his victory?

Buhari has kept Nigeria waiting as he struggled with this dilemma. While the press nicknamed him “Baba Go-Slow,” behind the scenes, he was fighting an epic battle against his strange allies the best way he knew how. In that free-for-all, Buhari has thrown his best punches and made his best moves. Finally, after four months of protracted infighting in which his media handlers tried all they could to put the best spin on the situation, he finally caved in and accepted defeat.

On September 30th, 2015, Buhari was forced to accept he could not go it alone. On that day, he finally decided to join the APC politically as its president. Even more significantly, he finally agreed to join forces as president with those he had despised all his political life – the PDP. On that fateful day, President Muhammadu Buhari jettisoned his earlier druthers. He relinquished his much-ballyhooed “change” programme and became reluctantly a full-fledged old-school politician.

Buhari pummeled as he lost the National Assembly

Buhari’s first mistake was to presume his campaign idealism could carry him through his presidency. Having won the election comfortably, the president decided the decent thing to do was to allow the legislators in the National Assembly to choose their own leaders without interference from Aso Rock. This was a departure from the procedure of his predecessors and his naïve supporters praised him for it. This was the Buhari they voted for; a man who would breathe new life into the clogged political system. But the whole thing backfired disastrously as the president became a victim of his own attempted saintliness.

What the system required was a president determined to ensure the right people are in leadership positions in the National Assembly to ensure his programmes are implemented expeditiously and to the letter. What we got instead was a president so idealistic, he allowed his opponents to turn the tables on him. Buhari’s hands-off vis-à-vis the National Assembly ensured that he ended up with a House and Senate leadership well-positioned to frustrate his programmes. In spite of APC victory at the polls, the PDP used the backdoor to steal the control of the legislature; using a template perfected, while the APC was still in opposition, by Aminu Tambuwal.

Both the Speaker and the Senate President were elected by minority PDP votes against majority APC votes. Moreover, both the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, are former PDP men. Both of them secured their positions by forging alliances with their former PDP colleagues; instead of their current APC party-members. As a result, while Buhari was still celebrating his victory at the presidency, he woke up one morning to discover the PDP had regained the legislature by a coup d’état.

It could even have been worse. The PDP could have gone the whole hog and secured a PDP man as Senate President. With 49 senators out of 109, all the PDP needed were 6 more votes to achieve this. This could have been squeezed out with a few back-room deals with the Trojan Horse PDP senators currently sitting pretty as turncoat APC members. But they decided not to be too greedy. They installed wily Saraki, a former PDP man, as Senate president. They then made the deals and secured their own PDP man, Ike Ekweremadu, as Deputy Senate President.

This was a wake-up call for the president. Finally, he learnt that his idealism just would not cut it in the murky waters of Nigerian politics. He cannot stand aloof but has to dive in and get dirty himself. Accordingly, recalcitrant Saraki was declared persona non grata in Aso Rock; but this could only work for so long given that he is the Senate President. His wife was invited for lunch by the EFCC; but a battalion of senators showed their defiance by escorting her there. Thereafter, the dogs of the Code of Conduct Bureau were unleashed on Bukola Saraki himself.

The power tussle game

On his election, Buhari had served notice that he would be his own man and not anybody’s dogsbody. He declared: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” This must have irritated those who put him in power to no end. He then went ahead to declare his political independence by telling APC governors they would have no say in his choice of ministers. He also refused to consult his party hierarchy in his early appointments and with regard to his choice of presidential aides.

With this, all hell broke loose. The same press that had been used to his advantage during the election was unleashed against him. The Teflon president was now presented as a sectional ethnic leader determined to northernise the country through regionally-lopsided appointments. The APC party hierarchy declared it would have none of this. Party chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, declared: “The party will henceforth be fully involved in the subsequent appointments, which is where the supremacy of the party will come to bear.”

Thereby, the battle was joined. Would the “noise-makers” in the APC prevail against the president and force him to use his ministerial appointments to pay back his political debts to those who successfully manipulated the process to get him finally elected after three failed previous attempts? Or would Buhari, now that he is elected, go it alone and bring in his own team of carefully selected technocratic saints and angels?

If he succumbed to the party, he would end up with the same old crop of yesterday’s politicians, many tainted with corruption, but would safeguard his political flanks. However, if he prevailed with his own men, he could present a new face of Nigerian politics by asserting the primacy of technocratic savoir faire over political compensations and “come and chop.” The one would confirm him as the new hero of the Nigerian public. The other would make him a traitor to his questionable political allies.

The outcome of this struggle was announced with his ministerial list. This revealed that Buhari surrendered after being roundly defeated by the old politicos of his party. The president has been forced to contradict his own promises and rhetoric by succumbing to APC pressure. From now on, what we are going to get is no longer Buhari the idealist, but Buhari the new-fangled politician.

Buhari’s saints fell from throne of glory

It is clear from the announced names of Buhari’s proposed ministers that these are not the people he took four months to select. Buhari does not need four months to come up with the likes of Babatunde Fashola, Rotimi Amaechi, Lai Mohammed, Ogbonaya Onu, Kayode Fayemi and Chris Ngige. These are old-time politicians whose names could have been announced 24 hours after his inauguration. None more so than Audu Ogbeh, a man who was a minister 33 years ago and is recycled by Buhari yet again.

Significantly, out of the 21 nominated names, eight of them were formerly associated with the “abominable” PDP. Indeed, Audu Ogbeh is a former chairman of the PDP. There are actually more former PDP men in Buhari’s ministerial list than there are former ACN, CPC and technocratic men and women. So much for Buhari’s much-touted “change” from the PDP.

Whatever could be said about these nominees, they are hardly the men and women of stainless-steel that Nigerians have been led to expect as Buhari’s ministers. As a matter of fact, many of them have huge corruption allegations hanging over their heads. Two of them are associated with Afri-projects Consultants, an organisation tainted with corruption while Buhari was chairman of the PTF.

Clearly, these were not the men and women Buhari wanted to have as his ministers initially. They are those he was forced to accept after four months of struggle with party chieftains. Even now, the struggle continues. Not surprisingly, Buhari prematurely badmouthed his nominees as “noise-makers” on his trip to Paris, inadvertently showing his disenchantment with having to make do with those he would rather do without. Nevertheless, the president’s reluctant nominees can still be waylaid by his opponents in the Senate, including the acolytes of Bola Tinubu whose preferences Buhari flagrantly ignored.

The president’s conspicuous messages

The president’s answer is a resort to old-fashioned political maneuvering, in the tradition of the infamous APC “navigator,” Olusegun Obasanjo. Put the fear of Buhari into Senate President Bukola Saraki by arraigning him before the CCB tribunal on outdated charges paradoxically similar to the ones Tinubu was acquitted of several years ago. If Saraki knows what is good for him, he will quickly ensure that the president’s list sails through the Senate without any hiccups.

The jury is still out on whether Saraki and his Senate colleagues will succumb to this now famous “body language” of Mr. President.

Only time will tell if Buhari’s incorruptible ideology will not be confined into the dustbin after his four years tenure.

Femi Aribisala is a seasoned opinion writer and also an iconoclastic pastor.

culled from: https://www.naij.com/601878-death-buharis-incorruptible-ideology-femi-aribisala.html

midastouch:
It would really be nice to try something different after 3.5 years of doing the same thing. I wish LFC all the best as they choose a new coach. YNWA!

Yeah!!!!!!!!! Great Stuff. I feel good ..............

It would really be nice to try something different after 3.5 years of doing the same thing. I wish LFC all the best as they choose a new coach. YNWA!