Dangote to launch 25,000 hectares of rice outgrower scheme.

Dangote to launch 25,000 hectares of rice outgrower scheme. Dangote Rice, a subsidiary of Dangote Group, is set to launch in Sokoto, Sokoto state its multi-million naira 25,000 hectares of rice outgrower scheme with a prospect of hundreds of thousand of employment opportunities for the rural communities inhabitants. The President of the Group, Aliko Dangote, disclosed at the weekend that the Company will on Wednesday flag off with a pilot project of 500ha by Gonroyo Dam in Goronyo community. Gonroyo Dam is the second largest in the country, after Kainji Dam. continue

Mobile finance holds potential for agribusiness.

Mobile finance holds great potential for promoting financial inclusion in agribusiness especially with mobile phones increasingly becoming affordable, Dr Berty Annan, the Country Manager, Agribusiness Systems International (ASI) has said. She explained that access to finance was a major challenge in the agricultural sector; and that it was expensive to build bank branches in rural areas coupled with difficulty in convincing the ‘unbanked’ to use formal banks.more

Uganda makes strides with biofortified crops.

Nsereko’s farm sits on 360 acres of land. On it is a ranch and gardens of watermelon and coffee, the things he has traditionally kept there.In 2015, however, Nsereko decided to start to grow beans on a large scale, but not the ordinary beans. These are called biofortified beans. Through crossbreeding, scientists at the National Crop Resources Research Institute (NaCRRI) in Namulonge have increased the iron content in them. “Crosses are made between preferred varieties that have low iron content with another variety with high iron content but that may not have the characteristics that farmers and the market want,” says Dr Stanley Nkalubo, a bean breeder and Team Leader for Legumes Research at NaCRRI. Nsereko’s beans – named NARO1, NARO2 and NARO3 – the names mainly emphasize that the beans are from the National Agriculture Research Organisation (NARO). The NARO bean two is the best as it is high yielding. The idea of biologically adding iron in beans is to help communities like ours, which are not into processed and packed foods, and so much into eating beans, access iron in good quantities. NaCRRI, a seed breeder; Nsereko, a seed multiplier; and CEDO, a seed distributor, are in a chain of individuals and organisations that target to feed a billion of the world’s people with biofortified foods by 2030. By the end of 2015, more than 100 biofortified varieties across 10 crops had been released in 30 countries, according to Howarth Bouis, the man who founded HarvesPlus 14 years ago and winner of the 2016 World Food Prize for his pioneering work in biofortified foods.In Uganda farmers mainly grow iron rich beans and orange fleshed sweet potatoes enriched with Vitamin A. More

Brothers earning millions from cabbage.

Gimogo Mohamubi, 36, Difasi Webisa, 40, and Wambehde Kamilu, 45, who are residents of Kasubi Central in Bardege Division, Gulu Municipality, are commercial farmers growing mostly cabbages. Before they were farmers, the three brothers were businessmen based in Mbale dealing in agricultural produce. They regularly came to Gulu to sell onions, carrots and matooke but due to losses they occasionally encountered they decided to involve themselves directly in commercial farming. They hired one acre of land at Shs 500,000 a year and bought cabbage seeds from an agro-input shop, then prepared seed beds and added manure to the soil. After three weeks, they planted the seeds in the seed bed. When they germinated, they applied pesticides and fertilisers such as NPK. A month later, the seedlings were transplanted to the main garden. It is important to transplant in the evening when it is cooler to avoid the seedlings from being affected by heat from the sun,they ensure the garden is weed free because these compete with the vegetables for soil nutrients. It is also very important to spray the cabbages with pesticides twice a month, because insects damage the cabbages when they eat the leaves. The crops are watered every morning and evenings during dry season because cabbages needs water to grow. Cabbages take about three months from when they are planted in the main garden to harvest. Currently, they earn about Shs12m from the cabbages and harvest twice a year,continue

20 Ways to Make $25,000 per month running an Agricultural Business.

Josephine Kiiza, director of St Jude Family Projects at Busense, Kabonera subcounty in Masaka, is of the most successful farmers in Uganda. At St. Jude family agricultural projects, they practice and train farmers in modern Integrated Organic Farming, a technology where various items on the farm - plants, animals, water and soils, are in such a way contributes directly or indirectly to the other. This is how a young farmer, can earn 50 million ($25,000) or even earn more money from your agricultural business;

Vital links between brain tumors and epileptic seizures.

A research by scientists at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital and which is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, report that the emergence of specific brain cells during brain tumor progression in a mouse model marked the onset of seizures and brain tumor invasion. This study opens the possibility of detecting brain tumors at the earliest possible stage and eliminating them before seizures begin.An improved understanding of how brain tumors cause seizures can potentially lead to strategies to prevent them or treat them. Astrocytes are often broadly categorized as one cell type, a lot of diversity exists in the functions carried out by these cells. The brain has billions of cells of which only 30 percent are neurons and the astrocytes are the predominant cell type of the remaining 70 percent. Astrocytes play diverse roles in the brain, from supporting the functions of neurons, participating in synapse formation and function and in the release of neurotransmitters, to making the blood-brain barrier and other functions. The researchers compared the ability of the different subpopulations of astrocytes to support the formation and function of synapses between neurons. Astrocytes are associated with numerous neurological conditions such as injury, multiple sclerosis, autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and brain tumors.

Removal of ovaries during hysterectomy linked to increase in heart disease, cancer and premature death.

A study led by the University of Warwick and published in the BMJ has found a link between the removal of ovaries during hysterectomy and an increase in heart disease, cancer and premature death. More than 113,000 hysterectomy cases were studied and the ovaries were removed in about a third of these. The study covered a ten year period where it compared women who were treated for a benign disease who had both ovaries removed with those who had one or none removed.The work looked at 113,679 cases of women aged 35-45 during the period April 2004 to March 2014. A third of the patients studied had both ovaries removed. The study showed that women who had one or no ovaries removed were less likely to develop ischaemic heart disease ,a coronary artery disease or cancer after hysterectomy than those who had both ovaries removed. The researchers also found that fewer women who retained one or both ovaries compared to those who had both removed died within the duration of the study -- 0.6% compared to 1.01%.