Agribusiness: Making money leasing farm machinery to farmers.

Farm machinery is part and parcel of a successful agribusiness but many farmers shun the equipment due to high costs. Entrepreneurs can cash in by investing in these farm equipment and then lease out to farmers for a fee.

For livestock farmers, depending on the size of investment, tractors, chaff-cutters, mowers, sprayers, forage harvesters and balers are some of the machinery to consider as they help in proper management and feeding of the livestock.

 Creative and  innovations to boost farming productivity is encouraged as it also helps grow the country’s economy in different ways.  Emphasis on irrigation to reduce dependence on rain-fed farming should also be of core interest of the in the face of limited farming land and idle land deemed un-farmable due to the prevailing dry conditions. 

 In crop farming, tractors, ploughs, planters, tillers and harrowers, among others, are essential as they facilitate better farming. continue

Doubling farm income with irrigation in India.

The finance minister has reiterated that the government is committed to doubling of farm incomes within five years. This is heartening, although we are not sure what is the base-year income one is taking to double. But deciphering his strategy from allocation of funds, three things stand out: one, irrigation seems to be a prime INSTRUMENT. The total funds from the Centre for irrigation would amount to more than Rs 32,000 crore. Second, interest subvention on credit also amounts to Rs 15,000 crore; and, thirdly, insurance premium subsidy is continue

Antibiotic restriction, not deep cleaning, appears to have halted C. difficile epidemic.

Antibiotic restriction, not deep cleaning, appears to have halted C. difficile epidemic according to new research.Widespread overuse of fluoroquinolone antibiotics like ciprofloxacin appears to have been the primary driver of the Clostridium difficile epidemic in the U.K., according to new research. Investigators concluded that restriction of fluoroquinolone antibiotics, rather than deep cleaning and other infection control measures, led to significant reductions in the incidence of C. difficile infections. Emergency measures such as ‘deep cleaning’ and careful antibiotic prescribing were introduced and numbers of C. difficile infections gradually fell by 80% but no one was sure precisely why. The study shows that the C. difficile epidemic was an unintended consequence of intensive use of an antibiotic class, fluoroquinolones, and control was achieved by specifically reducing use of this antibiotic class, because only the C. difficile bugs that were resistant to fluoroquinolones went away.” To determine whether it was antibiotic restriction or hospital infection control measures that achieved the significant decline in C. difficile infections (CDIs) after 2006, The study evaluated regional and national data on CDI incidence and antimicrobial prescriptions from 1998 to 2014. They also evaluated whole genome sequences from 4,045 national and international C. difficile isolates to estimate the incidence of CDIs caused by strains resistant or susceptible to fluoroquinolone. They hypothesized that CDIs caused by fluoroquinolone-resistant strains would have declined faster if the outbreak was stopped by antibiotic restriction, and that secondary transmitted infections of both resistant and susceptible strains would decline at the same rate if the outbreak was stopped by infection control measures. First, they determined that prescribing of fluoroquinolone and cephalosporin strongly correlated with CDI incidence compared with overall antibiotic prescribing continue

Exposure to patients with influenza persists despite hospital surveillance.

According to study results published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, a large community hospital in Toronto failed to diagnose one in six patients with influenza until they had exposed other patients and health care workers for more than 24 hours. Strategies to reduce transmission of influenza in hospitals include vaccination, the exclusion of ill staff and visitors, adherence to good hand hygiene routines, screening to detect influenza illness in patients, additional precautions used to care for patients with influenza, and antiviral agent despite implementation of such strategies, health care-acquired influenza and influenza outbreaks continue to occur. The researchers assessed the frequency, risk factors, transmission and exposure associated with influenza in hospitalized patients at North York General Hospital, a 426-bed community teaching hospital with active surveillance, in Toronto, Canada. They collected prospective data from consenting patients with laboratory-confirmed influenza admitted from Oct. 1 to April 30 during the 2012-2013, 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 influenza seasons. Upon admission, only 557 of 661 patients with influenza were placed on additional precautions. The investigators observed that out of 104 patients presenting with influenza symptoms after admission, 47 were nosocomial cases and 57 were community-onset cases. After reviewing medical charts, they found that 78 cases detected after admission exposed 143 roommates. Among those tested for influenza after exposure, no roommates of community-onset cases, and two of 16 roommates of nosocomial cases, were diagnosed with influenza, the researchers reported. The researchers said that out of 637 influenza-positive patients, 25% and 57% met the definitions of influenza-like illness established by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the CDC, respectively, and 70.3% met the Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committee (PIDAC) definition of febrile respiratory illness. Only 13%, 23% and 34% of the 56 patients with community-onset influenza discovered after admission met the PHAC, CDC and PIDAC classifications, respectively. Exposure to patients with influenza persisted in the hospital despite an intensive program to reduce the exposure of health care workers and other patients,because exposure to patients can occur prior to symptom onset. Patients with atypical symptoms, emphasis should be on optimal hand hygiene and vaccination of health care workers is a necessary adjunct to routine and additional precautions if patients and workers are to be best protected against influenza.

Panic in Plateau over fresh bird flu outbreak .

Poultry farmers in Plateau State have been urged to report any observed disease in their farms due to fresh outbreak of Avian Influenza (bird flu) in the state.The Plateau State Chairman of Poultry Association of Nigeria, PAN, Mr. John Dasar, who gave the charge yesterday, said reporting diseases observed in their farms on time to relevant agency will help prevent the diseases from unaffected farms. Although the outbreak of bird flu has raised fears among poultry farmers in the state, Dasar called for calm as he urged farmers to reinforce safety measures in their farms to avoid lost of investments. He said: “Three farms have recorded an outbreak: one at Dong village, one at Rukuba Road and at another farm, which I cannot recall now. I also cannot say precisely the number of birds that were affected. “We are working with veterinary doctors and they are working hard to ensure the disease does not spread. That is why I am appealing to all poultry farmers to report any trace of the disease in their farms so that prompt action can be taken to arrest the situation.” source

A New, “Highly Aggressive” Bird Flu (H5N5) Has Been Found in Germany.

H5N5, a new, highly pathogenic sub-type of bird flu has been found on several turkey farms in northern Germany, adding to concerns of the spreading of new strains of avian influenza.The Friedrich Loeffler Institute, Germany’s national institute for animal health, discovered H5N5 on Jan. 21 at four different locations, all owned by the same company, in Steinburg, in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. First, a farmer found a number of dead turkeys at a site housing 3,400 birds,then the virus spread to a larger facility housing 15,000 birds, according to the news agency Kieler Nachrichten. The birds were culled in an attempt to stop the virus virus, but on Thursday, the Schleswig-Holstein Agriculture Minister Robert Habeck stated that two more nearby farms with another 15,000 birds had been infected and would also have to be culled. Preventive measures, including closing down the sites, have been put in place to contain the virus, according to Habek. Habek described the new subtype, which has never been found in European poultry, as “highly aggressive,” noting that it killed more than half of the flock of 3,400 birds where it was first discovered within 48 hours with the rest of the turkeys having shown disease symptoms. H5N5 had already been found in wild geese in Germany and in wild birds in the Netherlands, Italy, Montenegro, Italy, Croatia and Israel. This discovery shows how dynamic the bird flu is as the virus is present and is changing,there hasn’t been a known case of H5N5 being contracted by humans.

Flu vaccine production using tobacco leaves..

The race to stop the flu virus is on with scientists working round the clock to produce a safe,effective and readily available vaccine. In the fore front of the research is a biotech company,medicago that are making flu vaccines from tobacco leaves. Currently, vaccines are produced using a process that involves injecting small bits of flu genes into a chicken egg and allowing them to grow. The current method is slow and production process takes five or six months. Medicago, have a greenhouse where they are planting tobacco plant Nicotiana tabacum, better known as smoking tobacco. This Australian plant is native to the desert and has historically been used as a stimulant although it contains less nicotine than standard field tobacco for the purposes of vaccine production. The strong point of the plant is that it matures in just six weeks. The technology inoculates genetic material into the leaves which in turn produces flu-like particles containing antigens and this trigger immune responses. The safety level is high because the particles are not live flu viruses, hence chances of infection are minimal. Once the solution is inside the plant, the virus like particles spend a week growing, after a few days the plants’ leaves become mottled and discolored. At the end of a week, the leaves are picked off each plant by hand for processing into a bulk vaccine. Public reaction has been largely supportive as people like the idea of creating something positive from a plant with such negative stigma, and because , it helps that the vaccine extraction process leaves no residual nicotine. The new vaccines will even be vegan-friendly — some vegans currently avoid egg-based flu vaccines. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, The technique will be put into commercial use in fiscal 2018 or 2019. Mitsubishi Tanabe has all but finished verifying the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines in the U.S. and Canada. The inoculations are set to undergo final clinical trials in the U.S. by the end of this year. If the firm meets its profitability goals, it will consider expanding the project into Asia, according to company President Masayuki Mitsuka. Clinical trials are also being conducted for bird flu and H7 influenza vaccines produced from tobacco leaves. In addition, the company is developing vaccines for rotavirus and for rabies using the same technique.