Blog posts about agriculture

During this week's online meeting John Dada was able to give the UK-Nigeria team an update about the Attachab Eco-Village project. Following the successful initial progress the French Embassy have just released the 2nd installment of their grant. John reported that the classroom / manager's residence is nearing completion as is the borehole. On Monday the construction of the overhead water tank and the installation of a solar pump are scheduled to commence. John explained that they are using compressed bricks work for the build. He also reported that as of today (Wednesday 30th November) there are over 20 young...

Wednesday's weekly online meeting between the UK and rural Nigeria came up against a familiar enemy - connectivity problems. Initially things looked bleak as we faced a long time delay with receiving and sending Skype messages. However, following a quick exchange of SMS messages the meeting was finally able to start, allowing John Dada to appear online for half an hour to bring us up to date with the latest news. We were pleased to hear that the ESSPIN programme is now well underway and are looking forward to seeing the photos. John also informed us that preparations for the...

Hi Vijay I am glad that you chose the article on "Pushing up Farm Productivity" to share with us. It looks as if several group interests are overlapping around the topic of food production, and eco-friendly solutions. I am very aware of approaches to food production and methods of growing things at present because Marcus Simmons is still sharing details of his recent trip to Africa. He was in Benin and Nigeria - and the main focus of his trip was permaculture. He went to Benin to learn more about permaculture as applied in West Africa, then went to share...

Dear Pam, Here is an interesting piece on the role that pulses and oilseeds play in nutritional security. Though the article talks about the state of Indian agriculture, it has some interesting points on increasing agricultural productivity. In order to progress, the mindset with regard to the following two factors needs to change, says Dr Lux Lakshmanan, Director, California Agriculture Consulting Service. Factor no 1: It is not the farmer who makes the food: he is only a facilitator. Food is actually made by plants. Since plants do not talk, their needs are understood through research and experimentation. Factor no...

Hi Pam, When I began discussing about a learning group on food security, I was only thinking of agriculture and farmers. But over this week, I began to realise that food security is a far bigger area than that: it also encompasses issues like availability and access, and most importantly, nutrition. Now, I don't how many people will agree with me that nutrition also forms a part of food security. But to me, the circle of food security is incomplete if a huge chunk of a country's population continues to wallow in hunger, despite high agricultural productivity and foodgrain output...