Economy
Adesina Seeks Emerging Agric Tech to Optimize Farmers’ Output
By Dipo Olowookere
President of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) Mr Akinwumi Adesina, has made an urgent call to give farmers across the continent new technologies with the potential to transform agricultural production.
Mr Adesina said the technology transfer was needed immediately and that evidence from countries like Nigeria demonstrated that technology plus strong government backing was already yielding positive results.
”Technologies to achieve Africa’s green revolution exist, but are mostly just sitting on the shelves. The challenge is a lack of supportive policies to ensure that they are scaled up to reach millions of farmers,” Mr Adesina said during a keynote speech delivered at the 2018 Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Annual Meeting held in Washington, D.C August 5, 2018.
He cited the case of Nigeria, where policy during his tenure as the country’s Minister of Agriculture, resulted in a rice production revolution in three years.
“All it took was sheer political will, supported by science, technology and pragmatic policies…Just like in the case of rice, the same can be said of a myriad of technologies, including high-yielding water efficient maize, high-yielding cassava varieties, animal and fisheries technologies,” Mr Adesina said.
AfDB is pointing the way to how this can be done, and is currently working with the World Bank, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to mobilize US$ 1 billion to scale up agricultural technologies across Africa under a new initiative called Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT).
TAAT is taking bold steps to bring down some of the barriers preventing farmers from accessing latest seed varieties and technologies to improve their productivity.
“With the rapid pace of growth of the use of drones, automated tractors, artificial intelligence, robotics and block chains, agriculture as we know it today will change,” the President said. “It is more likely that the future farmers will be sitting in their homes with computer applications using drone to determine the size of their farms, monitor and guide the applications of farm inputs, and with driverless combine harvesters bringing in the harvest.”
Mr Adesina used the opportunity to advocate for African universities to adapt their curriculum to enable technology-driven farmers and to focus on agribusiness entrepreneurship for young people, emphasizing the need to rise beyond theories to application.
Through its innovative Enable Youth initiative, the African Development Bank has in the past two years committed close to US$ 300 million to develop the next generation of agribusiness and commercial farmers for Africa.
Mr Adesina stressed the Bank’s resolve to change the face of agriculture in Africa to unleash new sources of wealth.
AAEA President Scott Swinton said Adesina and the African Development Bank exemplify the use of economics that makes a difference in people’s lives.
“If applied economics is economics that make a difference, I think that there is no better example of someone who has used that than Akinwumi Adesina,” Swindon said.
Mr Adesina told delegates at the 2018 conference attended by over 1,600 agricultural and applied economists from around the world: “There is no reason why Africa should be spending US$ 35 billion a year importing food. All it needs to do is to harness the available technologies with the right policies and rapidly raise agricultural productivity and incomes for farmers, and assure lower food prices for consumers.”
The AfDB chief, who was the 2017 World Food Prize winner, is advocating for the creation of staple crops processing zones across Africa (SCPZs): vast areas within rural areas set aside and managed for agribusiness and food manufacturing industries and other agro-allied industries, enabled with right policies and infrastructure.
“I am convinced that just like industrial parks helped China, so will the SCPZs help to create new economic zones in rural areas that will help lift hundreds of millions out of poverty through the transformation of agriculture- the main source of their livelihoods- from a way of life into a viable profitable business that will unleash new sources of wealth,” he said.
AfDB has already begun investing in the development of processing zones in a number of African countries, including Ethiopia, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique, with a plan to reach 15 countries in a few years.
To help Africa transform its agriculture, the bank is investing $24 billion over the next 10 years to implement its Feed Africa Strategy.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
On Tuesday, December 17, 2024, President Bola Tinubu will present the 2025 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly.
The size of the 2025 Appropriation Bill is about N47.9 trillion and would be presented to the parliament for approval.
Speaking at the plenary on Thursday, December 12, 2024, the President of the Senate, Mr Godswill Akpabio, said the presentation by Mr Tinubu would be at the chamber of the House of Representatives.
However, it is not certain if the lawmakers will pass the budget before December 31 to allow for a recent budget cycle of January to December.
Recall that on December 3, the senate approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) for 2025 to 2027.
This was after the President presented this the National Assembly on November 19 ahead of the consideration of the 2025 budget proposal.
In the MTEF/FSP, the government said it planned to borrow about N9.22 trillion from local and foreign sources to finance the budget deficit.
It pegged the crude oil benchmark at $75 per barrel and a daily oil production of 2.06 million barrels at an exchange rate of N1,400 to $1, and a targeted gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 6.4 percent.
At the plenary today, Mr Akpabio informed his colleagues that, “The President has made his intention known to the National Assembly to present the 2025 budget to the joint session of the National Assembly on December 17, 2024.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria added 150,000 barrels per day to its crude production in November 2024 as it continues to pursue an ambitious 2 million barrels per day target.
According to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Nigeria’s oil production rose to 1.48 million barrels per day in November, up from 1.33 million barrels per day the previous month.
In its Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR), OPEC revealed that at 1.48 million barrels per day, it is the continent’s leading oil producer, surpassing Algeria’s 908,000 barrels per day and Congo’s 268,000 barrels per day.
Business Post reports that OPEC doesn’t account for condensates, which Nigeria’s accounts for in its broader 2 million barrels per day target.
Despite the surge in production levels, Nigeria is still under producing its 1.5 million barrels per day output quota under a deal involving OPEC and 10 other producers known as OPEC+.
OPEC said it relied on primary data gotten through direct communication, noting that secondary sources reported 1.417 million barrels per day as Nigeria’s crude production in November — up from 1.4 million barrels per day in October.
The data also shows that OPEC’s total oil production among its 12 members rose by 104,000 barrels per day in the month under review.
According to secondary sources, the total of the 12 OPEC countries’ crude oil production averaged 26.66 million barrels per day in November 2024.
“Crude oil output increased mainly in Libya, Iran, and Nigeria, while production in Iraq, Venezuela, and Kuwait decreased”, OPEC said.
“At the same time, total non-OPEC DoC crude oil production averaged 14.01 mb/d in November 2024, which is 219 tb/d higher, m-o-m. Crude oil output increased mainly in Kazakhstan and Malaysia,” the organisation added.
In a related development, OPEC trimmed its 2024 and 2025 oil demand growth forecasts for the fifth time this year.
Now, the cartel expects the world’s oil demand growth at 1.61 million barrels per day from the previously 1.82 million barrels per day.
For 2025, OPEC says the world oil demand growth forecast is now at 1.45 million barrels per day, a 900,000 barrels per day cut from the previously expected 1.54 million barrels per day.
On the changes, OPEC says that the downgrade for this year owes to more bearish data received in the third quarter of 2024 while the projections for next year relate to the potential impact that will arise from US tariffs.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The duo of Afriland Properties Plc and Geo-Fluids Plc crashed the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange by a marginal 0.06 per cent on Wednesday, December 11 due to profit-taking activities.
The OTC securities exchange experienced a downfall at midweek despite UBN Property Plc posting a price appreciation of 17 Kobo to close at N1.96 per share, in contrast to Tuesday’s closing price of N1.79.
Business Post reports that Afriland Properties Plc slid by N1.14 to finish at N15.80 per unit versus the preceding day’s N16.94 per unit, and Geo-Fluids Plc declined by 1 Kobo to trade at N3.92 per share compared with the N3.93 it ended a day earlier.
At the close of transactions, the market capitalisation of the bourse, which measures the total value of securities on the platform, shrank by N650 million to finish at N1.055 trillion compared with the previous day’s N1.056 trillion and the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) went down by 1.86 points to wrap the session at 3,012.50 points compared with 3,014.36 points recorded in the previous session.
The alternative stock market was busy yesterday as the volume of securities traded by investors soared by 146.9 per cent to 5.9 million units from 2.4 million units, as the value of shares transacted by the market participants jumped by 360.9 per cent to N22.5 million from N4.9 million, and the number of deals increased by 50 per cent to 21 deals from 14 deals.
When the bourse closed for the day, Geo-Fluids Plc remained the most active stock by volume (year-to-date) with 1.7 billion units valued at N3.9 billion, followed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units worth N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc 297.5 million units sold for N5.3 million.
Also, Aradel Holdings Plc, which is now listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited after its exit from NASD, remained the most active stock by value (year-to-date) with 108.7 million units sold for N89.2 billion, trailed by Okitipupa Plc with 752.2 million units valued at N7.8 billion, and Afriland Properties Plc with 297.5 million units worth N5.3 billion.
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