Youths in Agriculture,the future of work.

The clamor to get more people into agriculture is growing by the day. The diversification of various economies around the world has seen massive revamping of the agricultural sector with youths in the center stage. The eye-opening fact that the ever growing world population needs a massive input of food production to ensure food security where many nations have realized that to feed themselves they have to double-up on agriculture combined with various innovations and technology transfer from other nations to reach their goal. The inclusion of youth in agriculture through various initiatives are widespread all over the world but most predominant in African countries,who according to reports will account for a major percentage of the population growth expected. In Nigeria there are various agricultural-initiatives targeted at youths,young graduates and high school graduates,the AGRIC-YES programme is an example.The government also recently announced a graduate agric scheme which will see about 500,000 trained in various sectors of agriculture such as poultry e.t.c. The school agric project is also another initiative,where agricultural practices and processes are taught and practiced in schools,thereby equipping the students for the future while growing their interest in agriculture. The agricultural initiatives spans across the country with many state governments incorporating youths in various scheme; the Osun state government recently sent some youths to Germany for training in agriculture with the goal to expand expertise and establish a more viable agrarian economy, the Imo state government has even proposed that the workers in the state should operate a 3-day-in the office and 2-days for agriculture to further empower the workers and increase food production in the state. A recent survey shows that more young Africans are ditching office jobs for the farms,a sign that the youths themselves realize that agriculture,agribusiness and agric-investment is where the future lies. They Jamaica recently staged a youth in agriculture village with the theme My dream;agripreneurship. Read A new initiative to involve more youths in agriculture in Jamaica has be launched by Farm Up Jamaica Limited (FUJL) which has implemented a ‘Young Soldiers for Food Security’ (YSFS) programme aimed at encouraging more of the country’s youth to get involved in agriculture. Farm Up is a non-profit organisation, established in 2013 to assist local farmers in the cultivation of organic produce. It is comprised of Jamaicans living in the diaspora. Executive Director of FUJL, Neil Curtis, said YSFS is a “deliberate push” to engage the youth in farming, after realizing that the majority of the persons in the sector are over 50 years old .Students from several agriculture schools get the opportunity to gain practical farming experience by working on our organic farms every weekend, and thus helping them to consider farming as an alternative career path. He The future actually lies in agriculture as many have come to realize that no nation can survive without agriculture because its the basis of major industries such as textile,leather,food processing,arts and crafts and biogas and electricity. The race to get more people involved is not solely for food security but to engage more stakeholders so as to provide innovative solutions to the climate change by practicing agriculture with better understanding of the ecosystem.

Veterinary technician, sentenced to four-months in jail after her pit bull puppy strangled itself to death.

Veterinary technician, 23, sentenced to four-months in jail after her pit bull puppy strangled itself to death trying to free itself from lead in 94-degree heat.An Alabama woman was sentenced to 125 days in jail for causing the death of her three-month-old pit bull puppy in June. Jessica Pruette, who worked as a veterinary technician for a short time at a local veterinary office, was found guilty of cruelty to animals during a bench trial last week, according to AL.com. Robert Bryant, a Montgomery Humane Society Officer, said he responded to the 23-year-old's residence on June 1. Police received an anonymous tip about a dead puppy in a backyard. Bryant said the puppy had been left unattended on a slip lead that would get tighter around the puppy's neck as he tried to get free,the puppy's tether was found wrapped around a stick and Bryant said it appeared that the dog had strangled to death. continue

Anthrax outbreak update in Yamal.

A blame game has begun on the outbreak of anthrax on the Yamal peninsula, with a senior veterinary watchdog official alleging a huge delay in informing the public and government officials of the lethal disease. With 23 people now infected, and one dead, even health minister Veronika Skvortsova is on antibiotics after visiting patients in Salekhard, it was revealed. She is taking the medicine as a precaution because she had not been vaccinated. The main theory as to the cause of the outbreak is that a zombie infection, inactive for 75 years or more in the buried corpse of a human or a reindeer, 'awoke' in the recent Arctic heat wave. But now the deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor Nikolay Vlasov claimed the infection was first spotted five weeks before proper warnings were given. He is demanding the total vaccination of the human and cattle populations to stop the threat of spread.The senior official from the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance criticized the 'delay in diagnosis' for preventing the outbreak of anthrax. 'YANAO (Yamal) is not the poorest region. But the veterinary service is bad, very weak,' he said. 'Veterinarians learned about the outbreak of epizootic anthrax five weeks after it began. Herders were without reliable communications.'One of them had to walk for four days across the tundra to inform about the accident.' At least six of the infected people, among them children, have contracted the virulent intestinal form of the infection which has already killed a 12 year old boy. They were contaminated after eating infected meat, say specialists. In all, 90 people - including 54 children - are in hospital. 23 of these have contracted anthrax.continue

China opens terrifying glass walkway on the side of Tianmen Mountain.

The pathway is 100 metre long and 1,500 metres up a mountain.The Coiling Dragon path opened this week and has 99 turns around its path. Tourists walking on the pathway are given special protective shoes to protect the glass.The walkway has been constructed in the Zhangjiajie Tianmenshan National Park.To get to the walkway visitors can take a cable car or face a long uphill walk. continue

Graduate Agriculture Scheme to promote food security.

The federal government of Nigeria is set to launch a graduate agriculture scheme in 12 River Basins in the country as 50 graduates are expected to be trained per river basin in varied areas of agricultural production. The Minister of Water Resources, Mr. Suleiman Adamu, disclosed this in Lokoja, during a courtesy visit on Kogi State governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello. He explained that his mission in Kogi state is to launch our programme on Graduate Agriculture Scheme which was initiated by this administration to support the new initiative towards food security and self-sustenance in this country The minister noted that one of the quickest ways to support the policy thrust of agriculture in this administration was to support revitalization of River Basins, an issue which according to him has been discussed exhaustively in various Federal Executive Council meetings. He said the council has come up with the initiative to make agriculture very attractive to teeming unemployed graduates in the country and integrate them into agric businesses. The minister explained that the ministry of water resources had this year taken some practical steps to revive the River Basin by signing Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with the Songhai farm based in Benin Republic for cross fertilization of ideas on river basin operations. He noted that the historical importance of the state and confluence of rivers Niger and Benue in Lokoja has made it strategic to the economic diversification drive of the present administration. continue

Ted Cruz to Hold ‘Agriculture Round Table' After Breitbart Farming Coverage

Cotton has a $4 billion annual economic impact within a 100-mile radius of Lubbock. Breitbart Texas previously reported the region could lose 25 percent of its cotton producers if late fall harvest prices are in the range of 65 cents per pound. Calls for a Farm Bill re-write in 2017 are reaching fever pitch in major agriculture sectors across rural America. Presently federal spending on farm policy is less than half of 1 percent. Many see Cruz, who will reportedly run for re-election in 2018, as a crucial player behind the scenes for Texas agriculture, which exceeds $100 billion economic impact annually, while rural lands comprise over 80 percent of the state’s geography, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture.more

Dogs and" eye-language"

Your dog is sending you messages with his eyes e.g the Gray Wolves adapted gaze signals to help them hunt in packs. According to a Japanese study your dog is communicating with his canine friends and foes using his eyes alone. The fact is some of his facial features may be designed specifically for that purpose, including the coloring around his eyes, the shape of the eyes, and the color and shape of the iris and pupil. These are all elements of the canine eye-based communication system. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology at Kyoto University in Japan compared 25 different types of canines and separated them into 3 groups based on their facial coloration and gaze: • Group A... species with clearly visible pupils and eye position (example: gray wolf) • Group B... species with clearly defined eye placement but camouflaged pupils (fennec fox) • Group C... species with fully camouflaged eyes and pupils (bush dog) The researchers theorize that the species in Group A adapted “gaze signals” to help them hunt in packs and live cooperatively in groups. Group B canines, including foxes, only use eye communication some of the time. The all-dark eyes of animals in Group C, such as bush dogs, blend in with their facial coloring. According to the researchers, it is typical of various types of predators to obscure their eyes to improve their hunting prowess. (If a prey animal can’t tell where his predator is looking, he can’t predict what might happen next.) The researchers speculate that the whites of the eyes (sclera) of the Group A canines evolved to amplify the appearance of the darker iris and pupil. This applies to wolves, dogs, and also humans. According to the researchers, gaze communication may be a very useful tool for other canines as well, including the family dog. Prior studies have shown that domestic dogs are more likely to make direct eye contact with humans than wolves raised in the same environment. Continue