Agribusiness

News : Agribusiness

STATE-owned Zimbabwean businesses signed a raft of energy, mining and farming deals worth billions of dollars with Chinese companies, Zimbabwean Vice-President Joyce Mujuru announced this week. (AllAfrica)

THE Government has put in place a committee to source at least $25 trillion for tobacco production during the 2006/7 season, an industry official has said. (AllAfrica)

AT its peak, Kondozi Farm raked in an estimated US$15 million and employed 5 000 workers. In 2004 the government forcibly took over the successful horticultural concern. Critics shouted the move down given its socio-economic implications. But obsessed with revolutionary mantras and hatred for the West, government ignored the voice of reason. This, it did in the erroneous belief that the critics were lap dogs for the West's perceived regime change agenda and opposition to the land reform exercise. (AllAfrica)

Workers in the tea industry may go on strike on Thursday after the Labour ministry lifted the ban on the use of tea picking machines. (AllAfrica)

EFFORTS to revive Zimbabwe's comatose economy through renewed public-private sector cooperation under the National Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) have continued to suffer setbacks, with the latest coming in the form of disruption of activities at a prime banana plantation in the eastern highlands. (AllAfrica)

Small holder marketing movement ensures that producers in Western Province get better prices for their grain, writes PETER MUSACereal farmers from Western Kenya have devised a cereal marketing method to avoid exploitation. (AllAfrica)

Ministers of Agriculture responsible for implementing the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture have unanimously approved a Ministerial Declaration in which the Treaty's contracting parties pledge to fully implement it at the national level via specific rules and programmes. (AllAfrica)

President Olusegun Obasanjo hosted the first Africa Fertilizer Summit at the International Conference Centre, Abuja on June 13. (AllAfrica)

African lead ers gathered in Abuja yesterday to discuss how to fertilize African farm lands with President Olusegun Obasanjo challenging African countries to shore-up agricultural growth by empowering farmers and by making Agriculture attractive, sustainable and rewarding to the people of the continent. (AllAfrica)

Bunyoro-Kitara Diocese has started earning handsomely from a coffee growing project they started about four years ago. (AllAfrica)

The lush green tea fields of Kericho spread out across the foggy ridges, adding beauty to the hilly district. Tea factories, their chimneys rising into the sky, dot the vast plantations. (AllAfrica)

Research Agronomist Agricultural irrigation and drainage development has been the cornerstone of attaining food self-sufficiency in The Gambia. Agricultural policies under both presidents Jawara (first president of The Gambia) and Jammeh (current president of The Gambia) have emphasized the need to increase rice (staple food of The Gambia) and vegetable production through the implementation of several rice and vegetable irrigation and development schemes throughout the country. Some of these irrigation and drainage projects started before 1994 (during the presidency of Jawara) and continue up to the present day (during the presidency of Jammeh). (AllAfrica)

THE Danish International Development Agency, under the Agricultural Support Project Sector, has launched a sh840m rehabilitation project in Apac district to promote agricultural production. (AllAfrica)

THE MINISTER for Communications and the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Dome-Kwabenya constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Professor Mike Oquaye, has outlined a number of developmental projects for the constituency that would create job opportunities for his constituents. (AllAfrica)

The Government of Liberia and its international partners have drafted an "Action Plan" aimed at improving the nation's agricultural program under the Sirleaf led government after years of bloody civil conflict. (AllAfrica)

Representatives of 100 countries gathered today in the Spanish capital for a ceremony inaugurating the first-ever meeting of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, promoted by FAO. (AllAfrica)

A consortium of European lenders has granted a long-term loan of seven million euros ($5.8 million) to Kenya's Panda Flowers in Naivasha for expansion of the farm's operations. (AllAfrica)

The government of Liberia, through the Ministry of Agriculture, has completed what it calls Statement of Policy intended for the Agriculture sector and the drafting of the related Action Plan for the next two years. (AllAfrica)

In 1999 scientists identified a virulent new strain of black stem rust disease on wheat in Uganda. In 2001 it slashed Kenyan harvests by more than two-thirds. If this strain, called UG99, spreads to the rest of the world -- "only a matter of time," according to an expert panel -- it could destroy 60 million tonnes of wheat a year, or ten per cent of the global harvest, worth about US$9 billion annually (see Global effort aims to tackle deadly wheat fungus). (AllAfrica)

Angolan minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gilberto Buta Lutucuta, arrived Monday in Abuja, Nigeria, to attend, on behalf of the head of State, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the African Summit on Fertilizers. (AllAfrica)

In his recent report to Parliament, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi presented the performance of the Ethiopian economy during the second half of 2005/06. Meles introduced his report by saying, "Since the economy of our country is based on the agrarian sector, the source of our progress is agriculture. The harvest is evaluated by the relevant local and foreign bodies and the result is known." (AllAfrica)

Angola's deputy minister of Agriculture, Dario Katata, will attend the first session of the managing board of the International Treaty on Phytogenetic Resources from 12-16 June in Madrid (Spain). (AllAfrica)

Italy announced this week that it had organized a conference to be held here on protected denominations of origin to discuss best practices for competitiveness of Ethiopian agriculture products on the international market. (AllAfrica)

African leaders and international donors launched an ambitious attempt today to foster a "Green Revolution" in farming, based on increased fertiliser use, that would help end hunger in the continent. (AllAfrica)

FARMERS should be exposed to technologies that can be used to bolster productivity on the farms, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Cde Sylvester Nguni, said during a seed fair held in Harare yesterday. (AllAfrica)

The signature of the Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture marks a major step towards guaranteeing food security in the world. It is also a historic landmark in North-South cooperation, according to FAO on the eve of the first meeting of its signatory states. (AllAfrica)

In a bid to access agricultural products and markets from Makari Gbanti chiefdom in the Bombali district northern region of Sierra Leone, two newly bridges linking the Mayembre and Masuba communities has been reconstructed. (AllAfrica)

With two major multilateral African organizations having called for a summit to boost organic and inorganic fertilizer use on the continent, a five-day high-level meeting will start tomorrow in Nigeria, one of the co-sponsors, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said. (AllAfrica)

Sugar production and textile manufacturing in Swaziland are on their way out, taking tens of thousands of jobs with them. (AllAfrica)

AFTER running Kondozi farm to the ground, government will now partition what is left of one of the country's most viable horticultural projects to 'capable' farmers, after its erstwhile owners spurned overtures to return to the decimated property, The Financial Gazette has established. (AllAfrica)

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced June 7 that he will lead a trade and investment mission to East Africa in late fall. (AllAfrica)