Farme-Net: The SIFE WAY

Communities and societies round the world share many challenges; the pressures of change and globalization the drive for efficiency and return on investment, the race to gain and retain recognition at the global scene, and making more recent headlines- the global economic crunch, a planet in peril and global food shortage. Facing these and especially the latter, the need for relevant steps towards ensuring food security is more pressing now than ever before; from record high increase in prices of grains, wheat and cassava making news headlines, to the more or less silent but present shortage in supply of animal protein sources like eggs, milk, meat and fish; our global village is indeed facing what officials at the World Food Programme are calling a SLOW TSUNAMI.  Enhanced and supported agriculture will undoubtedly be gateway to broad based economic growth and development.

However various youth lead organizations across Nigeria are taking decisive steps to support the global efforts towards ensuring food security in their community, with focus on fish farming, Bee Keeping, Snare & Jathropha.  Worthy of mention is the SIFE team of University of Agriculture Makurdi-Nigeria, where the young undergraduate students know too well that the fish sub-sector in their area is not properly organized & depends more on COLLECTION rather than PRODUCTION. As such, obnoxious practices are often used thereby posing the danger of over fishing or even extinction. In 2000, there was 260 known species of fish. As at 2004, 12 species were considered threatened (Source: Mins. of Forestry & Water Resources), this is an agricultural divide. To help change this, the SIFE team under a project called FARM-NET (farmers network), is working to change this with the believe that organized fish farming may help reduce harvest pressure on natural stock, with the aim of booting supply to enable us meet the present demand rate, reduce pressure on over-fished waters and eliminate some factors leading to high fish prices and affecting the consumption pattern of fish.

We this understanding, the team went ahead to identify specific challenges fish farmers were experiencing in order to seek solutions that fit onto this market context. They heard a one on one interaction with farmers, with the farmers identifying some of their challenges and they both came up with a two step plan to increase productivity and profitability; these plans are story boarding and knowledge transfer sensitization & skills transfer and development hands on farm training.  Through this plans veteran fish farmers and other professionals in the industry with intending farmers came together to share best practices. Issues addressed included those of water quality management, feed formulation and compounding to cut production costs, stocking sizes and the factors which ultimately complete the supply circle by bringing it to the pot of the consumer. It is said seeing it once is worth than a 1000 times hearing it.  Young Fish farmers and intending ones came face to face with practical to enable a better appreciation of this trade; on overcoming one of the challenges that hinder young people from going to commercial farming, the issue of credit facility, the SIFE team brought in financial experts to take beneficiary of farm-net initiative through the ABC for loan assessment, and the how-TO for forming an agricultural cooperative.

A follow-up survey of this training done by SIFE team last year, a year after the training, 90% of the farmers demonstrated a 100% practical knowledge acquisition of the necessary skills for better and healthy management of their farms, by cutting cost by 40% by formulating quality feeds as against buying feeds at high cost and are recording an average profit increase of 35%. Encouraged by this result, the SIFE team, says “we were inspired to further propagate this message, and we so in a sensitization campaign for fisher men, urging them to desist the use of obsolete pesticides for fishing in a bid to make safe our water environment, preserve the future of natural fishing and for our children”.

The team was not just thinking of empowering the farmers and encouraging youths to go farming, but the sustainability of the project was also in focus, because if the farmers continue do well long after now, we they have achieved anything, therefore programme beneficiary formed a cooperative society to achieve and meet common goals, access loans & share best practices.

Yours sincerely was part of the UAM SIFE team for 4yrs and was part of the project, so indeed we have learnt that building a better community begins one block at a time.                    

                                

“LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER: PROMOTING TOLERANCE AND DIVERSITY IN A GLOBALIZE SOCIETIES”

(A tribute to Jos & World Trade Centre September 2001 – September 2011)

(This Essay was written in 2006 for GioPeace Japan International Essay Competition)

For over a century, the world in the wake of globalization and industrialization, as being calling for peace and friendship, which is the greatest oil for sustained global community. Everybody in the global community wants to live in peace, no matter their philosophy, colour or religious belief, however the trait to these wish, is violence which is brought about by intolerance, or lack of respect for other peoples culture and belief.

Peace however has been linked with education, a UNESCO maxim “Since war begins in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed”. We are living in a world of Panasonic speed, yet threatened with avalanche evils.   

In years past, world leaders have sacrificed, true friendship on the altar of bilateral talk, most at times on selfish aims, be that as it may, some bilateral talk brings about economic growth and peaceful co-existence, but peace is early forgotten at slightest misunderstanding when such businesses are built on selfish political interest. We must not wait on bilateral dealings; a need to go beyond bilateral deal, genuine efforts should be made to foster international peace and friendship.

Accurate information and genuine commitment in passing such information, on any issue or crisis, is major tool in achieving success or putting any end to such problems. However most intervention or promoter of tolerance in the past, has taken this into consideration for others they have neglected genuine commitment.

A lot of things have made men to neglect tolerance and respect for other people’s culture, religion, ethnicity, colour (racism), Government action, insincerity of developed nations to poorer nations, family crisis and the media, which has been the brain behind most intolerance acts.

Over the year we have all held to our religion and ethnic believes on the hypocritical side, using religion as an excuse to kill and cause atrocities in our community. However what baffles me, is that the God we claim to serve either through Christianity, Islam, traditional religion or whatever form, we worship him says in the Bible “How lovely is it when brothers live peace.” Those hiding under religious mask should know that even God, says also in the Bible He that does not love has not come to know God, because God is love. (1John 4:8. Holy Bible)

If  everyone of us in the global community leaves by the moral standard of God the world would be better place to live in you must love your neighbour as yourself says the good book.(Matt: 22v39). I believe, if this simple law is followed, tolerance will pace ahead instead of violence, which has taken over every nook and crane of the world.

A close alley to religious intolerance is ethnic hatred, every day innocent people are being abused and were killed, murdered, merely because of their race or nationality. Almost all ongoing crisis/conflict are as a result of ethnic hatred. Yet many, of us that support such act, want other people to tolerate our short coming. Even God tolerate our mistakes.  If only we can tolerate ourselves most of the crisis experienced will not have come, let me quickly tell you a story of what intolerance can caused. It is a story of what caused the miss-world beauty pageant to be relocated from Nigeria to London during the programme in 2002, a National paper in the country THIS DAY, Daily Newspaper, located in Lagos the commercial city of Nigeria and a Branch in Abuja the capital city. The paper published a story about the Muslim refusal to allow the event grand finally to be staged in the capital city. This report erupted a violent protect in Kaduna a City in the northern part of Nigeria with predominately Muslim and about 885km form Lagos , and 250km from Abuja the venue of the programme. THIS DAY office, private houses, churches, mosque was burnt down and innocent people died as a result of intolerance, but the question in mind as asked by Peterx Maji in AVP (Alternative to violence Programme Newsletter, Nigeria 13^th June 2003 on Pg.10-11) are;

• The Pastor/Reverend /Imams that were killed were they working for THIS DAY Newspaper or were part of the organizer of the pageants?
• The Churches/Mosques that were burnt were they THIS DAY office or stores or venue for the pageants?
• The innocent men on the street that were killed…what have they got to do with the pageant?
• The business and properties that were destroyed, were they investment of the publisher of THIS DAY or the organizers of the pageants?

A lot of questions like these kept coming to mind and no justified answer to these questions before going to the street, a lot of things that happens would not have been but if only…

The reporter that wrote the piece was all based in Lagos and the killing and destruction happened in Kaduna 885km, over 14 hours drive from each other. What has it got to do with it?

The pageant was to hold in the capital city of Nigeria, Abuja with fees to be paid before entrance and it is very expensive tickets. The Minimum ticket was, 15,000 Naira Nigerian money equivalent to 160 United State Dollar, for a country living below 1 Dollar a day, thus if you are not interested you do not have to go and watch. For those that felt it would be aired on National Television, they had choices, other stations are available, that would not air the show, and so they as well can switch there, or even play video/CD or for the cast resort switch off their Television set. So why the killing and destruction.

If only … we will learn to respect other people opinion…ourselves…cares for others, if only… we will ‘tolerate others’. We can see from what happened in Kaduna-Nigeria, that we must learn to live together to avoid such happenings if we must achieve our aim of a globalized community.  

The media has failed us over the year, with its promotion of violence and prejudice, through films, information about people’s traditions. If we must have tolerance then prejudice, must be sent packing, King of Prussia, Frederick the Great said Drive out prejudices through the door, and they will return through the window. The Millennium Development Goals of having a multifactor, human-centered vision of development cannot be achieved, if tolerance and diversity is not promoted with sincerity. Achieving the MDG, is a collective responsibility of the global community, so if we must not fail then tolerance and diversity must be promoted by the media, government of poor and rich nations, religious leaders and followers.

If tolerance most reign then a balance must be reached been the poor and the rich, a hungry man, they say is an angry man, so to achieve a friendly world, the extreme poverty must be eradicated, they must be food on the table of the poor. Decades of research as proved the link between the practices of tolerance and diversity and economic development.

Charity they say begins at home, the family as the entrance to the society, quality of the family determines the qualities of the nation, so  families has a greater job of bringing  tolerate children’s, families must share affliction with neighbours and non-tribe friend. Family ethic should be restored; western promotion of device is not happing matters, civilization must not break the bond of love between families. A case study of the Israelis and Palestinians conflict as shown that adult citizens are not helping matters; innocent children are given wrong information on the crisis. They are just told an Israelis is your enemy no friendship vice versa.

In school, acquisition of academic knowledge should not be the sole priority of a child going to school. Moral and leadership skill should be included in their syllabus. A report by New York times, as a result of Children in  Japan been taught early in life to hand in anything they find to the police, in 2002 $23, million in lost cash to the Tokyo, Japan Metropolitan police lost and found centre. In want to tell such children, will also tolerate others, without communication, each individual would merely be an Island isolated from all other island. Tolerance must begin with me and you, our position should be based on truth; people seek truth. We as individual must be ready to reverse our position if, we discover it is not fair, learn to listen to people everybody has made a journey, know where he/she is coming from, before you conclude. Always work towards a win-win situation.  

The wind of change can only come from the heart of human beings. Like said by the World greatest pop singer Michael Jackson, Starting with the man in the mirror is the surest way of recreating our form world into a paradise of joy…especially at times like these when prejudice and hatred have turned our lovely planet into a place of suffering.

We must not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with the staggering static of violent acts as a result of in-tolerance. The future is a subject of intense fascination; we must promote true friendship and cultural tolerance thanks to UNESCO and the goi peace foundation who are custodian and promoter of peace and tolerance. The saying “catch them young” and “pay now or cry later”, should be taken seriously young people’s hearts should be arrested now that they young. The cost of living together and promoting tolerance and diversity for now, through ensuring access to vital/life saving information, will be small compared to a future generation stigmatized and discriminated race, if nothing is done now..

The big question, I am leaving you all with is “What kind of world will this be in 10-50yrs time? If we all want peace, then tolerance and friendship must be our watch word.” Our word our bond”, we should all leave wishful things or thinking and gripe the truth.

I am looking forward to a future generation like in Askanya-Nova Biosphere reserve in southern Ukraine, where heralds of world animals from the six(6) continent of the world meets and roam the plane ranging from Cape buffalo from Africa to emu, a large flightless bird from Australia, all staying together in peace and harmony. The reserve shows how animals’ wild in nature, from various corners of the earth can adapt to their surrounding and co-habit peacefully, tolerating one another; prototype of what we all want!

For me, I am for peace, mine stand!        

OVERCOMING POLITICS OF TRIBALISM

Free, Fair and Credible has been the song since after the general elections held in April 2011; it is not so, not because it has given us leaders that can truly serve us, but because the entire electoral process was done within  the ambiance of the law (Electoral Act 2010)

Even with the level of success achieved most people still voted based on some form of sentiment in spite that I still give kudos to Nigerians for showing little signs of our gradual movement from non-participation to active participation in our democratic process.                            

Some few weeks after the general elections, I was back for DESPLAY season 6, semester 2 programme at Abakaliki in Ebonyi, (for those that do not know DESPLAY is an acronym for Democratic Series, Participation Learning and Active Youth; it is a leadership training for young people to promote the democratic culture among young people, it is divided into a 3 semester course, a learning visit to an African Democracy & a legislative Internship) 

Inclusive in our semester 2 programme is election of our DESPLAY President, before our arrival the politicking has began, with various interest group putting forth candidate, however when the chips were down, two candidate finally emerged- the night before the D-Day it was a presidential debate I felt after such a debate DESPLAYERs should have made up their minds who the cap fits, it was not so, because on  election  day signs of sentiment started showing its ugly face and this was manifested in the voting going into round 3, an election that should have been lucid created a tensed atmosphere among a great family(DESPLAYERS). It went for three rounds not because the fight was between two “qualified” candidates, but because tribal sentiment was left to becloud a rather smooth republic we meet and was building on. Though the eventual winner HON. Poopola Ishiaka was not the best man for the job in the republic, he was the qualified among the two candidates because I interacted with the two candidate so I know this, must admit most DESPLAYER had some perceived issue personal interest with the candidacy of Hon. Poopola, including yours faithfully he was still the best man for the job; that should not have been allowed to generate into a tribal block vote. Despite this short-coming the victory of His Excellency Hon Poopola Ishiaka still goes to all DESPLAYERs for their maturity after the elections because the great cord of love and commitment has since returned to the community just minutes after the voting, that is DEMOCRACY!    

There is a lesson I learnt from the process, even after the election I sought to know the fear of the Mr. President, before the election, what he told me was disturbing, this I see as a root cause of most sentiment issue arising in our society; he was afraid may be his religious background as a Muslim would have stopped him, I do not think any DESPLAYER saw him as a Muslim, I felt hurt because this was not so, if we have voted based on religion it would have been 17 votes against 5 votes of his; am not sharing this to discredit the person of His Excellency, but it is to draw a lesson that most victims of tribal, religious and emotional abuse are first the offender with their perceived thoughts, so let’s check that.

So three check list in overcoming politics of tribalism or sentiment in general are:

Character, Charisma & Carriage (a separate article to follow up in some couples of days watch out!)   

And to all elected political leaders & public servants I leave you with this SERVICOM OATH crafted at the presidential retreat in 2004. “We dedicate ourselves to providing the basic services in a fair, honest and transparent manner”. Are you ready to abide by the oath, if yes go ahead with your job and if no please it is not too late pull-out now, because it will not be business as usual…”Our eye don open… Our participation go change Niaja” 

Dear young democrat as I  wish His Excellency Hon. Poopola O. Ishiaka a huge success in his term as our president lets all build a character of  a detribalize, non-fanatic religious men. For me I chosen the path of a detribalize Nigerian…Let the best man get the Job!

          

IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON AGRICULTURE IN BENUE STATE

Nigeria is still at the clutch of a growing national HIV/AIDS pandemic, even with the drop in prevalence rate with an adult HIV Infection rate of 5.40% in 2005 to 3.10% in 2009 [AIDS AVERT (2010)]. Over all in Nigeria it is estimated that 3.6% of the population are living with HIV and AIDS, although HIV prevalence is much lower in Nigeria than in other African countries such as South Africa and Zambia, the size of Nigeria’s population (around 149 million: 2006 census), means that by the end of 2009 there were almost 3 million people living with HIV.          Approximately 192,000 people died from AIDS in 2009. With AIDS claiming so many lives, Nigeria’s life expectancy has declined significantly. In 1991 the average life expectancy was 54 years for women and 53 years for men. In 2009 these figures had fallen to 48 for women and 46 for men. According to AIDS Information online, as at 2010, it is estimated that 2.38-2.4 million adults aged 15-49 years are living with HIV virus in Nigeria today, of which approximately 53.85% are women.  Most of these people will fall sick and die within the next 5-10 years.

Benue state “The Food Basket of The Nation” located in north central Nigeria, where most arable production takes place in the country. Unfortunately this region and Benue State in particular has been recording one of the highest levels of infection rate, (16.8% in 1999; 13.5% in 2001; 9.3% in 2003; and 10.0% in 2007 & 2009) [DFID/BNARDA, 2004 & AIDS AVERT, 2010]. This growth rate is having a devastating impact on individual lives and livelihoods. HIV and AIDS is not the only crisis the rural people have to deal with. The downturn in the economy of nations is hitting Benue State.  Investment in infrastructure, water, health and education facilities are limited, resulting in poor basic service delivery or no service at all. The economy of Benue State mostly depends on Agriculture, Agro-related activities like processing, trading and casual labour, and migration. The high prevalence rate of Benue State is expected to adversely affect individuals as well as state development, farming is under great stress due to worsening terms of trade, and input markets that are non-functioning; farming has become more labour intensive per unit harvest, a development that increases the vulnerability, demanding an urgent attention.

HIV/AIDS has no boundary as it is already exerting its damage in this important industry. There are probably very few households that have not been affected in some way by HIV/AIDS.  The pandemic is likely to affect all households of all wealth and diverse categories; with 29% of its population already living in extreme poverty with another 36% considered moderately poor, (FOS, poverty profile 1999, in Holhorst Ogwimulle, 2003).

Another alarming implication of the HIV pandemic is the emergence of large numbers of orphans. With this high rate Benue is not free. By 2000 it was estimated that there were approximately 139,000 orphans in Benue and by the end of 2010, there will be well over 683,000 Orphans (Ssengonzi and Moreland 2001). Considering widespread level of stigma still attached to HIV/AIDS the current statistics available might not be 100% accurate, it might likely have been underestimated. The state is supposed to be the food basket of the nation, and if the current trend of HIV/AIDS continues without a coordinated effort to manage the situation, then we would not reach the enviable heights of the sole food basket of the nation.     

This calls for urgent action. In 2010 yours truly carried out an academic research to check the impact of the virus on Agriculture in Benue State-Nigeria; this study evaluated the impact of HIV/AIDS on agricultural development in Benue State using Gwer-East Local Government Area of the state as a case study.  Data were collected from 120 respondents who were randomly selected from seven sites using a structured questionnaire. Objective I to IV and the null hypotheses were analyzed using a descriptive statistic, chi – square and t – Statistical test. The result of the chi – square test showed that HIV/AIDS impact on household agricultural productivity was statistically significant (< 0.05). A paired analysis of income, orphans events, number of dependents and farm sizes of both AIDS affected household and Non-AIDS affected household using t – test and simple percentage showed a significant difference between AIDS affected household and Non-AIDs affected household. It was significant at 5%, thus suggesting AIDS places economic burdens on AIDS affected households than Non-AIDS affected households. Field study revealed that factors such as poverty, food insecurity, economic instability, orphans & vulnerable children (OVC), stigma, negative influence of the elite, lack of political will, conflict, unethical medical practice, labour-migration, inadequate rural infrastructure, corruption and poor media coverage were identified as major factors that made the study area vulnerable to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Although there is a general expression of concern about the AIDS epidemic by state, LGA, community and religious leaders, however when one looks at efforts on ground how limited they are, one will ask if the political will to act decisively to prevent further spread of HIV and deal with the consequence of the epidemic is really there? Based on these discoveries the study made several recommendations, one of which . Finally what is local is original, is the thrust of the researcher’s recommendation; meaning if support is built on existing local initiatives and frameworks, and avoidance of burgoos importation of ideas from other lands which cannot be sustained, coupled with taking effective action now the projected damage on the economy and life of the people by HIV/AIDS between now and the next decade will be avoided or reduced.

For a complete work, mail on Oni, Isaac omojomi@gmail; a copy will be available soonest on wiki space (ogikit.wikispaces.com) watch out!