News
IITA research eases fears over yam supplies as Nigeria kicks off export.
Research being conducted by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in seed yam multiplication holds promise and could help Nigeria to quadruple yam production, says Nigeria’s Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbe.
Addressing reporters after a tour of IITA facilities including cassava fields, the aflasafe (a biocontrol product for controlling aflatoxins) production plant, the seed yam production facility through the aeroponics system, and a soybean inoculum fertilizer facility; Chief Ogbe said the quality of research at IITA was reassuring and could help Nigeria to address food security challenges and rev up exports.
The Minister, who met with the Director General of IITA, Dr Nteranya Sanginga and other top officials of IITA, said the government would work more closely with IITA to ensure that technologies being developed by the Institute are scaled out to farmers.
According to him, agriculture holds the future but it cannot be achieved through the use of hoes and cutlasses.
“Agriculture is not just hoe and cutlasses but also research and science. That is what IITA is offering. This institute has come to play a role not just for Nigeria but Africa,” he explained.
He added that: “Agriculture has a future. Agriculture has fortunes, and with an Institute like this, those who want to go into agriculture and make money should know that there is money to be made. With you (IITA) we can move forward.”
On 29 June, Nigeria launched the export of yams with 72 tons of tubers from the country to the United States and Europe, sparking concerns over the ability of the country to sustain exports owing to the high cost of seed yams which is exacerbated by a lack of knowledge on modern seed yam multiplication techniques.
Traditionally farmers are compelled to reserve as much as 30 percent of their harvest as seeds for the next planting season. However, researchers from IITA and national partners have developed the aeroponic system of seed yam multiplication whereby the vines of the crop are used in propagating seed yams rather than tubers.
Through these method, farmers may not need to reserve their harvest for the next planting season but can simply produce seed yams for the planting season using yam vines, according to Dr Norbert Maroya, Coordinator for the project—Yam Improvement for Incomes and Food Security in West Africa (YIIFSWA).
Chief Ogbe who visited the yam aeroponic facility to observe the production of seed yams noted that the establishment of aeroponic systems across the country would rev up the production of seed yams and could quadruple the production of the tuber crop.
“One of the major problems facing yam growers is the issue of seedlings… Things (technologies) like this can quadruple the production of yams,” he said.
The Director General of IITA said the institute would support the efforts of the Nigerian government towards ensuring that the country is food secure.
According to Sanginga, the goal of the Institute is to work with governments in the context of their national agriculture strategies to eradicate hunger and poverty and create wealth.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery has made headlines by announcing a further reduction in the price of diesel, dropping it from ₦1200 to ₦1000 naira per litre.
The refinery’s decision comes on the heels of its recent supply at a significantly reduced price of ₦1200 per litre, which was introduced three weeks ago, signifying a remarkable 30 per cent decrease from the previous market price of approximately ₦1600 per litre.
This substantial reduction in diesel prices at Dangote Petroleum Refinery is expected to reiterate positively throughout various sectors of the economy, potentially serving as a catalyst in alleviating the persistently high inflation rate in the country.
In a statement last week, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest individual and the owner of the refinery, expressed his optimism regarding the potential impact of the price reduction on inflation in Nigeria.
“I believe that we are on the right track. I believe Nigerians have been patient, and I also believe that a lot of goodies will now come through. There’s quite a lot of improvement because if you look at it, one of the major issues that we’ve had was the naira devaluation that has gone very aggressively up to about ₦1900,” he remarked.
As anticipation builds around the implications of this move by Dangote Petroleum Refinery, stakeholders and consumers alike remain hopeful for the positive effects it could bring to the Nigerian economy in the coming months.
More than 50,000 Russian military personnel have died during the Ukraine conflict, the BBC reported Wednesday, citing its own reporters, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers.
They found that more than 27,300 Russian soldiers died during the second year of the war, a 25-percent increase on the first year.
BBC Russian, Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022, using open-source information from official reports and the media, as well as using satellite images of Russian cemeteries to estimate the number of new graves.
The figure of more than 50,000 is eight times higher than the official toll acknowledged by Moscow in September 2022. It does not include deaths of militia in Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said in February that it had lost 31,000 soldiers, but that figure is also likely to be significantly lower than the true toll.
Russian losses spiked in January 2023 as it launched a large-scale offensive in Donetsk and again months later last year during the battle for the city of Bakhmut.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” at dawn on February 24, 2022, which has since turned into a bloody and attritional war, isolating Russia from the Western world.
Responding to the report, the Kremlin said it did not disclose any information on military deaths and casualties, which falls under the remit of the defence ministry.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added official secrets laws and those covering what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine meant it was “absolutely understandable” that the ministry did not release the figures.
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed that 95 million Nigerians need to enroll for the National Identification Number (NIN) to meet its target of 200 million enrollments by 2025.
Kayode Adegoke, Head of Corporate Communications at NIMC, emphasised the importance of this enrollment during an interview on X over the weekend.
He stated, “For NIMC to meet the 200 million target by 2025, 95 million Nigerians need to register for the NIN.”
Adegoke revealed that over 105 million NINs have been issued to Nigerians and legal residents so far.
He assured Nigerians of the commission’s commitment, saying, “We want to assure Nigerians that within the next one or two years, we will reach our target of enrolling all Nigerians.”
“The NIN serves as a unique identifier for each citizen and has become increasingly important for various government initiatives aimed at improving security, governance, and service delivery.”
Adegoke highlighted the efforts to streamline the modification and enrollment processes under the leadership of Abisoye Coker, the director-general of NIMC. He announced the development of a self-service platform, allowing Nigerians to make necessary modifications such as changing names, dates of birth, email addresses, and phone numbers from anywhere, using different devices.
Emphasising the convenience of the self-service modification portal, Adegoke encouraged Nigerians to utilize this innovative solution.
He noted the evolution of the process, citing the past requirement for applicants to visit NIMC offices for data corrections.
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