Women Urged To Plant Vegetables For Local Consumption.

Gov. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has advised women to plant enough vegetables for local consumption so as to discourage its importation from countries like South Africa. Akeredolu gave the advice in Akure on Thursday when he received members of FADAMA III Additional Financing project, led by Mr Tayo Adewumi, National Project Coordinator. He said that initiating viable vegetable projects for women could be a channel for creating veritable means of livelihoods for many families in the country. He commended the Federal Government for introducing FADAMA, which he described as useful in facilitating the efforts of the rural dwellers to earn a living through agriculture. The programme is to encourage youths between the ages of 18 years and 35 years to go into agriculture as a profession and business.The idea is to take youths away from the streets into farming; a lot of social vices and youth restiveness in the country today will be a thing of the past. source

IITA and CFIL to engage youths in agriculture with reality television show.

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the Corporate Farmers International (CFIL) on Thursday held a strategic meeting on ways of engaging youths to participate in agriculture through entertainment. Dr Kenton Dashell, IITA Deputy Director-General of Partnerships for Delivery, said that the youth had a negative perception of agriculture; hence the need to create a reality television show to engage them. This partnership will be a win-win situation for both IITA and Corporate Farmers. Dashell noted that this reality television programme would entertain the youth and get them to make millions doing what they should do to improve the economic status of the country. read IITA and CFIL to engage youths in agriculture with reality television show,more

Using real-time satellite data to track water productivity in agriculture.

How to use real-time satellite data to track water productivity in agriculture.Measuring how efficiently water is used in agriculture, particularly in water-scarce countries, is going high-tech with the help of a new tool developed by FAO. The WaPOR open-access database has gone live, tapping satellite data to help farmers achieve more reliable agricultural yields and allowing for the optimization of irrigation systems. WaPOR was presented this week during a high-level partners meeting for FAO's Coping with water scarcity in agriculture: a global framework for action in a changing climate. It allows for fine-grained analysis of water utilised through farming systems, generating empirical evidence about how it can be most productively used. Worldwide water utilization - the majority of which is used by agriculture - has outpaced the rate of population growth for most of the last century and some regions are close to breaching viable limits. WaPOR sifts through satellite data and uses Google Earth computing power to produce maps that show how much biomass and yield is produced per cubic meter of water consumed. The maps can be rendered at resolutions of as little as 30 to 250 meters, and updated every one to ten days.continue

How to turn waste plastics to fuel.

How to turn waste plastics to fuel. Plastic waste littering the world's oceans can be transformed from worthless trash into a valuable diesel fuel with a small mobile reactor. This technology could be implemented globally on land and possibly placed on boats to convert ocean waste plastic into fuel to power the vessels. The study shows how pyrolysis technologies can be used to break down or depolymerize unwanted polymers, such as plastic wastes, leaving a hydrocarbon-based fuel.

The production attributes that are most important to consumers when buying beef, chicken.

The production attributes that are most important to consumers when buying beef, chicken. Consumers are increasingly interested in how their food is produced and look for claims such as no growth hormones, no GMOs, etc. on food products. In a new study, no growth hormones was prioritized as most important and organic as the least important. For products like poultry, the USDA forbids the use of hormones, meaning consumers may not be well informed about production claims. For many consumers, buying a gallon of milk is much more complex than finding the preferred fat content and expiration date. They want to know how the cows were treated, what they were fed, whether they received growth hormones or antibiotics, whether the milk is organic, e.t.c. A recent University of Illinois study ranks which of these production attributes are most important to buyers for four different products: beef, chicken, milk, and eggs.The study determined the importance of seven specific on-farm practices in consumers' purchasing decisions:1) Animals were not administered growth hormones. 2) Genetically modified organisms were not used in the production of this product (non-GMO). 3)Animals were humanely raised. 4)Animals were not administered antibiotics. 5)Animals were raised in a free-range (or cage-free) environment. 6)Animals were grass-fed (or raised on a vegetarian diet). 7) The product is certified organic. The biggest surprise in the study is that 'no growth hormones' is the number one concern consumers have across the board on all of these products.The presence of such labeling claims can determine the sales of one product over another identical product. Labels also provide a way for consumers to express their opinions by voting with their dollars. They can purchase products labeled with concerns that are important to them.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.Bringing Mario Kart to the Switch feels like an easy win for Nintendo’s fledgling machine. It isn’t exactly a new game – it’s Mario Kart 8, with a few extras – but that doesn’t really matter, for three main reasons: the ability to play in portable mode opens up whole new contexts, not that many people owned a Wii U anyway, and Mario Kart 8 is still an absolutely fantastic racing game. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,more

Avocado’s nutrient arsenal a mighty weapon against metabolic syndrome

Avocado’s nutrient arsenal a mighty weapon against metabolic syndrome: The nutritional composition of the avocado is potent enough to positively affect the metabolic changes seen in type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.