‘Trini women obese’

Dr Isabella Granderson, lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, UWI, has said that more than 50 per cent of Trinidad’s women are obese.

Speaking at the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund (CIFSRF) Caricom Food Security Project “End of Project Knowledge Sharing Forum” yesterday at the Hyatt Regency, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, Granderson said, “Fifty-five per cent of Trinidad’s female population is obese and our importation bill is steadily increasing.”

She pointed out however that Trinidadian males were a mere 15 per cent. Granderson further stated that these are the factors that spun the genesis of the project which the objective was to change the alarming issues of obesity and the high importation bill.

Granderson stated the project started after the observation of trends in Caricom agricultural trade in crops and livestock products during the period of 1990 to 2011. She pointed out that a study between 1990—2009 showed that the consumption of calories fats and oils is increasing. She added, “With regard to total calories we are over the recommendation by 17 per cent, staples 13 per cent, fruits and vegetables a deficit, sugars and sweeteners over, and an increase in fats and oils.”

Granderson then stated that, as a result of this we are now faced with the situation of obesity and the non-communicable diseases associated with obesity.

In her presentation Granderson noted that the project included workshops, focus groups, surveys, and experiments. Adding “The project life-span was three and a half years and was conducted in four Caricom states, Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and Guyana.”

Three main aspects highlighted in the project were the successes of the school feeding initiative, the introduction of mulatto grass as animal feed and the benefits yielded from drip irrigation for agriculture. Granderson explained that the drip irrigation is a beneficial technological process of water conservation that farmers were introduced to and trained to efficiently use. Within the project, small farmers were targeted.

In a brief interview after her presentation she reiterated that the school feeding programme was a large part of the project. To combat the issue of nutrition there was modification of some of the meals, such as lowering of fat and sodium content.

She said “Two ounces were initially provided. Now three ounces are provided with the inclusion of fruits and pure fruit juice.” She was also committed to continue working the school feeding programme. She recognised the challenges of purchasing fruits with regard to cost, as apples and grapes are cheaper than the local produce, the season of produce and lack of communication between farmers and caterers.

Apart from Granderson, there was a cadre of other presenters, representing University of the West Indies UWI. The second presenter, Nakisha Mark, spoke on agricultural technology and protecting agriculture, noting this can be done through plastic green houses, shade house, tunnel houses among others. Paulette Bynoe, an environmental scientist from Guyana, discussed environmental sustainability, dealing with environmental issues regarding the use of gricultural technology and the use of pesticides.

Hazel Patterson Andrews, another UWI representative, expanded on the research regarding National School Dietary Services in Trinidad and Tobago and emphasised on challenges in obesity and nutrition.

Arlene Saint-Ville and Kristen Lowitt both representatives of McGill University concluded the presentation by highlighting suggested policies from finding throughout the project one major policy being a food procurement policy.

Taken from Trinidad Express Newspapers

Nigeria: NCS Calls for Domestication of ICT Policy

Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has laid emphasis on the need to recognise knowledge as a resource that can be traded to achieve national development.

The NCS in a communiqué released at the end of its national conference in Enugu , stated that domestication and localisation of Nigeria ICT policy through the various tiers of government across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government, have become very important.

The communiqué signed by its President, Prof. David Adewumi, Deputy President, Chairman, National Conference Communiqué Committee Prof. 'Sola Aderounmu, and chairman, Conferences Committee, Moses Braimah, states that after the paper presentations, technical sessions, contributions of the participants and exhaustive deliberations, the following decisions were reached:

That Information Communication Technology (ICT) is an enabler for growth and national development, capable of being the highest employer of labour in the country; That competitive advantage in business has always been driven by knowledge and that multiple stakeholders need to collaborate to build strong partnerships in the transformation of Nigeria from information society to knowledge-based economy.

The Communiqué also stated that a knowledge-based economy is predicated on the production and dissemination of ideas; that there is the urgent need to recognise knowledge as a resource that can be codified, registered and made tradeable; hence need for a well concerted investment in knowledge acquisition.

Also it noted that achieving this requires immediate domestication and localisation of Nigeria ICT policy vertically through the various tiers of government and laterally across MDAs of government.

The document states that state-level agencies should be created to implement, coordinate and monitor ICT activities geared towards indigenous knowledge production in the 36 states of the Federation and FCT.

That such state agencies should tap from the wealth of experience of Nigerian IT professionals and practitioners who are members of NCS.

The participants also empathised with the Federal Government over the various security challenges being faced in the country and noted that effective use of ICT in intelligence surveillance could assist in arresting some of the terrorists.

Furthermore, the conference commended the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture for the giant strides being made through the deployment of ICT for agricultural monitoring and information dissemination.

Taken from All Africa, Nigeria: NCS Calls for Domestication of ICT Policy

GES: Agric Ministry, IFDC Tap Into New ICT Platform

When the Growth Enhancement Support (GES), an innovation under the agricultural transformation agenda of the federal government, was introduced, a major criticism was that many beneficiaries were unable to redeem their inputs due to GSM network failure or an absence of it in many remote areas. There is no doubt that, as part of the federal government’s plan towards a complete withdrawal from fertiliser procurement and distribution, the GES programme – a sort of supply chain management scheme – was evolved to liberate farmers who have been short-changed in the past under phoney fertiliser subsidy programmes.

The Touch and Pay system devised to assist the farmers has received a boost with the adoption of a state-of-the-art technology to help overcome the perennial problem involving government procurement and distribution, which crowded out private sector. With this technology, the pervasive complaints about network problems in remote areas will soon be a thing of the past, going by the experiences from the two states where it was done on a pilot scale.

The unprecedented increase in farmers’ registration as well as input redemption have shown that, with this technology, farmers in remote areas no longer have to worry about being captured or about input redemption. For the 2014 wet season, the pilot targets 500,000 farmers, working with over 100 agro-dealers in FCT and Sokoto State. In the first three months, this technology has registered 290,000 farmers; a near threefold increase on the previous two years combined. The number is growing.

The Token Administration Platform, or TAP, is an e-voucher scheme that uses the latest tablet and smartcard technology to change the way the Nigerian government collects data and delivers benefits to its citizens. Although TAP is currently only active in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory and Sokoto State, the initiative is already changing the agricultural landscape.

TAP, which uses near field communications (NFC) and people-powered mesh networking to transfer data to field staff devices, is fast gaining ascendancy. Findings show that, in 2014, there will be more active users of contactless smartcards in Nigeria than the UK, a record achievement coming from the agricultural sector. With the present results, during the 2014 wet season, more Nigerian farmers used NFC technology than UK bank card users.

TAP technology was developed by a leading independent consultancy Consult Hyperion, in partnership with international development specialists GRM International, the agricultural non-profit International Fertiliser Development Centre (IFDC) and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), with funding from the UK’s Department for International Development, to transform the way agricultural subsidies in Nigeria are managed.

Under this arrangement, the system is using the latest mobile technology to connect online and offline farmers to their local agricultural dealers (agro-dealers), enabling farmers in remote regions where there is no network coverage to have access to the GES fertiliser discount scheme. The scheme will eventually involve more than 500,000 farmers and 100 agricultural dealers. Using a more secure, efficient and reliable process, TAP is directly supporting Nigerian farmers and boosting the local economy.

Six area councils and 62 wards are involved in FCT, with 109,000 beneficiaries, 46 per cent of which are women. For the total population of beneficiaries, 83 per cent received green card while 17 per cent received black card. Out of the 80,000 farmers who redeemed their input, 46 per cent were women. The overall redemption rate was 73 per cent.

In Sokoto State, 398,000 beneficiaries, 19 per cent of which were women, were enumerated in eight weeks, giving an average of 10,000 farmers per work day, of which 76 per cent got green card and 24 per cent got black card. The redemption involved 79,000 farmers after the second week. Again, “the second year of TAP technology application is targeting 2,125,000 farmers, with one state per geo-political zone,” the IFDC source claimed, describing TAP as “a form of technology leap-frogging, giving an interesting outlook.”

Quoting the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, “TAP allows our farmers to redeem their inputs in areas where there are no networks, simply by using Android phones as smart cards…just tap it on the phone and all the allocation shows up and the farmers redeem their seeds and fertilizer without any network. It’s revolutionary. We are the first in the world to do it.”

Recently, while was registering under the technology at the IFDC office in Abuja, the minister said “this is a fantastic technology. It helps in identity management to synchronise stocks to get over the issue of double registration and helps with speed of redemption and will improve the integrity of GES platform with banks and agro-dealers’ network.” The minister observed the “need to speed up registration (of farmers),” promising “to have this demonstrated at the National Economic Council.”

Through the GES Scheme, farmers and agro-dealers have access to agricultural subsidies to drive production, output, and ultimately, the growth of the agriculture sector. NFC is used in farmer identification. Farmers are issued with a TAP contactless card, which is linked to the farmer’s record via the tablet’s NFC interface. The record includes a photograph of the farmer, which is subsequently presented to agro-dealers for verification at the time of voucher redemption.

TAP is being used to register farmers for the GES. It accurately records and transfers biometric and credit data, and delivers vouchers to eligible farmers and agricultural dealers. It takes the discounts to the farmers by effectively extending mobile network coverage into an offline environment, beyond the current reach of mobile networks. TAP significantly reduces the risk of fraud and ensures that fertiliser subsidies reach the farmers for whom they are intended.

TAP offers full weekly reconciliation reports so that farmers get their discounts quicker and agricultural dealers receive their reconciliations quicker; it also has built-in fraud prevention and detection systems. Distributing 1.5 million vouchers, it has been estimated that TAP will save farmers £12.7 million. According to Paul Makin, head of Mobile Money Practice, Consult Hyperion, “we are overcoming obstacles of geography, identity and fraud to quickly and effectively provide farmers in Nigeria the fertiliser subsidies they are entitled to and need, when they need them.”

Nigerian farmers have opportunities to take advantage of this emerging technology. Considering the multiplier effects of speed, wider coverage, greater number of beneficiaries covered and the transparency involved in the data.

Taken from Leadership, posted on Aug 7, 2014

UWI developing new agricultural professionals

“Young people are attracted to technology driven versus labour driven industries.

Hence in order to empower graduates, create efficient and effective human resource capacity within the field of agriculture and attain agricultural success, we, academics, have to address these needs,” declared University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus Principal Professor Clement Sankat.

Sankat was addressing attendees at the opening of the Faculty of Food and Agriculture (FFA) Workshop titled “Building Human Resource Capacity in the Region” at the Conference Inn UWI, Circular Road, St Augustine on Tuesday.

A continuation of the pioneering work done by the UWI FFA in Trinidad and Tobago, the workshop marked the first steps in the combined mission of Caribbean universities and agricultural training institutions to lead Human Resource development in agriculture in the region.

Through presentations, discussions and brainstorming sessions, heads and representatives from these organisations pitched ideas and solutions to the “brain drain” in the Caribbean. The two day workshop, from July 29 to 31, engaged the contributions or regional directors of agriculture and principals of tertiary level institutions and other representatives of colleges of agriculture in the region with the hope of deriving strategies to treat with the issue of building human resource capacity in agriculture in the region through revamped academic programmes, apprenticeship programmes, and other innovative methods of recruitment and strategic relationships with the private sector.

Coordinated by Faculty of Food and Agriculture Dean, Dr. Issac Bekele, Lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Extension and Economics, Dr Wayne Ganpat and other Faculty representatives, the workshop was the first of its kind by the UWI FFA in their vision for a new breed of agricultural professionals in view of the challenges for regional food availability and food security. Also included in Sankat’s opening address was a detailed identification of major challenges to food availability and food security in Trinidad and Tobago and the region- “Low interest in the agricultural sector and an aging farm population, low productivity and production levels of commodities, lack of consistent policies, low levels of resources for innovation, technology and creativity research, inadequate financing facilities and inadequate trained people for the sector…These challenges and more need to be addressed so that we can take advantage of the opportunities in the sector for increased food production, accentuation of the value added industries and more importantly to curb the ever increasing dependence on food imports and the high food import bill,” Sankat said.

His assertions were supported by Dominican Director of Agriculture, Ricky Brumant who urged fellow professionals in the regional industry to work together to solve the problems of agriculture by sharing intellectual capital between countries. “If there is a shortage of agricultural economists in Dominica and Barbados and an excess in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica why can’t we share these human resources between each other?” Brumant asked. “Dominica may lack agricultural engineers but there may be an excess in Trinidad and Tobago.

We have reached a stage where we need to collate and organise our resources in the region towards boosting the sector through a united approach.” Also speaking on the first day of the workshop was CEO of Caribbean Chemicals, Joe Pires, who dared University officials to think outside the box and beyond the current times in preparing human resource capital for the working world. And, in light of new academic programmes for the UWI FFA, Dr. Laura Roberts-Nkrumah commented on the newly offered Undergraduate Diploma in Agricultural Extension and Dr. Wayne Ganpat discussed the proposal of an Undergraduate Diploma in Tropical Agriculture.

“The overall aim of this diploma is to develop the technical competencies of agricultural extension workers in the region so that they could develop and conduct technically sound extension programmes for agricultural producers using the appropriate methods. I see this as a major force in reviving and sustaining the sector amidst the challenges for agriculture in the region,” Ganpat suggested.

Posted by Trinidad and Tobago's Newsday on Saturday, August 2 2014

Japan’s firms to focus on ICT, agro processing

Japanese firms with a focus on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Clean Technologies and Agro-processing are being encouraged by Prime Minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar to set up shop at the recently launched Tamana Intech Park in east Trinidad.

The PM invited Japanese firms to do so during bilateral talks with her Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, held in the Octagon Room of the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s late yesterday afternoon.

The talks were the first official business of Abe’s two-day Official Visit to Trinidad and Tobago, following his mid-afternoon arrival in Trinidad yesterday.

Although the approximately hour-long talks were private, the Office of the PM issued a statement afterward about the issues raised.

Apart from the Tamana invitation, which Persad-Bissessar advised Abe would be pursued by Minister of Trade, Industry, Investment and Communications, Vasant Bharath, in discussions with relevant members of the delegation during their stay, the delegations also spoke about the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and both countries’ bids for non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council.

The ATT, which establishes international standards for the movement of conventional arms and ammunition across borders, was signed by Japan and TT in 2013.

Yesterday, Persad-Bissessar sought the support of Abe’s administration for this country’s bid to host the ATT Secretariat.

Meanwhile Abe expressed his gratitude to Government for its decision to waive entry visa requirements for Japanese nationals entering the country for business and tourism purposes for a maximum period of 90 days.

During the discussions, Japan’s PM also raised the matter of deepening bilateral relations and requested that Persad-Bissessar consider opening a TT Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. The PM promised to immediately engage in discussions with Foreign Affairs Minister, Winston Dookeran, on this issue.

Persad-Bissessar spoke of the positive impact on the South-Western peninsula with regard to job creation by the introduction of the dimethyl ether (DME) Project, which was established by the Massy Group, the Mitsubishi Corporation, and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical.

The OPM said matters regarding climate change, renewable energy, Small Island Developing States (SIDS), crime and security, triangular co-operation, and the environment were also pursued ahead of the Japan-CARICOM Summit being held today at Hilton Trinidad, Port-of- Spain.

Japan’s PM recognised the role Trinidad and Tobago plays in CARICOM and advised that Japan would host the 4th Japan/CARICOM Foreign Ministers Forum in Tokyo.

Prior to the talks, Abe inspected an honour guard of the TT Air Guard on the grounds of the Diplomatic Centre. This was followed by a private exchange of gifts between himself and Persad-Bissessar. TT’s PM presented Abe with a steel pan while his gift was wrapped in a medium-sized rectangular box. As of press time, the exact details of Abe’s gift to Persad-Bissessar were not known.

By Sasha Harrinanan Monday, July 28 2014

Re-posted from Trinidad and Tobago's Newsday

Nigeria: I'll Deploy ICT to Drive Agric Insurance - NAIC MD

An exclusive interview with the Managing Director of Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), Bode Opadokun, identified challenges confronting the organisation, his new road map, top priorities and plans to turn around the fortunes of the only Federal Government owned agricultural insurance company which had become almost "moribund" prior to his assumption of office. Excerpts.

What were some of the problems you met on assuming office four months ago?

I will not call them problems. I will prefer to call them challenges. The challenges have to do with the level of performance of the organisation, when we look at the opportunities that really exist in the sector that we are practising. Yes, it is an insurance sector. We are established to focus more on agricultural insurance. When you look at our level of penetration, prior to my assumption of office, we are still scratching the ground. That really confirms that a lot of opportunities are still untapped. So what I can say is that we have not done as much as we ought to be doing, as at the time of assuming office. That is a major challenge.

To read more, Nigeria: I'll Deploy ICT to Drive Agric Insurance - NAIC MD

Taken from All Africa

AGRA integrates ICT into agriculture to spur productivity

The Alliances for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in partnership with Image-Ad has introduced an Information Communication Technology (ICT) services into agriculture to spur growth and productivity of smallholder farmers in six African countries including Ghana.

The technology uses mobile phones and software that could send SMS and voice messages to farmers about extension services, marketing and all other important messages relating to agriculture to ensure that smallholder farmers achieved increased productivity across the value chain.

As part of the partnership, AGRA under its Market Access Programme has provided $957,475 to Image-Ad for a three-year period to mount this mobile and internet-based software that would link thousands of farmers in Ghana with a wide range of information and services to boost crop yields and to locate buyers to make transactions more transparent. 

Madam Garcia Armelle Chedoi Honvoh, Head of Business Development of Image-AD Ghana, said the project known as mFarms had profiled over 20,000 farmers in Ghana on the platform which allows them to build relationship with marketing agents and other aggregators.

She said farmers accessing mFarms on their phones receive information about good agricultural practices, where to locate agro-dealers and the prices and availability of inputs such as seeds and fertilizers noting that aggregators or Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) uses the platform to extend extension services to farmers.


To read more, AGRA integrates ICT into agriculture to spur productivity


Taken from Business Ghana