Happened in US 40 Years Ago : 87 US Farmers Unions Speak Out for Indian Farmers Protest Reagan era furthered the farm crisis through deliberate federal policy changes, with systematic erosion of parity prices and other deregulatory efforts.
Rakesh Tikait, president of Bharti Kisan Union, one of the largest farmers unions, is helped to get onto a stage upon his arrival to attend a Maha Panchayat or grand village council meeting as part of a farmers protest against farm laws at Kandela village in Jind district in the northern state of Haryana, India, February 3, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui.
World21/Feb/2021
New Delhi: Citing damning examples of Reagan era policies that have led to irreparable damage to the US’s farmers, 87 farmers’ unions in the country have extended solidarity to the ongoing protests by farmers in India.
TODAY
File Photo
Farmers in Kano have unanimously called for banning of Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs, because of the side effect they have on their farming system, health and on the environment.
The farmers made the call during a farmers’ dialogue meeting organized by Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, on food and farming system, in Kwankwaso town, Madobi Local government area of the state.
HOMEF’s Programme Manager, Joyce Ebebeinwe who briefed newsmen on the outcome of the meeting, said GMOs have health, environmental and economic implication hence the need to ban the products.
Ebebeinwe further said the farmers preferred their food to be produced and preserved naturally.
Bennett Oghifo
An environment group, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has alerted the nation that the fire which broke out at an oil well in Ondo State in May last year is still raging and has become a threat to the community’s environment.
A statement by the group said, “Eight months after, the fire outbreak which occurred on the Ororo-1 Well in Chevron’s operated Oil Mining Lease (OML) 95 in Ondo State following a blowout from Grace-1 HWU, a Hydraulic Work over rig, is still burning.”
The public was earlier made to believe that the fire eruption which happened in May 2020 had been stopped after some months, HOEF said in its statement. “However, community contacts and a report by Africa Oil + Gas Report affirm that the fire has continued to burn at the time of this Alert.
By Jimoh Babatunde & Gabriel Ewepu
The Central Bank of Nigeria has in recent years come up with different programmes to grow the country’s agriculture and ensre food security in the country. One of such programmes is the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.
Under the programme, the CBN set aside N40 billion, out of the N220 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) to be given to farmers at a single-digit interest rate of maximum nine percent per annum.
As part of the apex bank’s financing framework, the CBN has facilitated the funding of rice and maize farmers and processors through the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, Commodity Association, Private/Prime Anchors, State Governments, Maize Aggregation Scheme (MAS), and the Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme (CACS).
By Fadekemi Ajakaiye
Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) will be partnering with Ecole Urbaine de Lyon in hosting her first School of Ecology (SoE) for 2021.
According to a statement by HOMEF, this partnership was officially announced at a virtual press conference held on Friday, 15 January 2021 to present the third edition of Ecole de l’Anthropocene (School of Anthropocene) 2021 organised by Ecole urbaine de Lyon (Lyon urban school) in France. The School of Anthropocene will run for one week, from 25th to 31st (Monday to Sunday) January 2021.
The SoE which will form one of the sections of A l’Ecole de l’Anthropocene, will be examining the roots of resource exploitation with particular focus on food, extractivism and ecology. This section will hold 26th to 28th that is, Tuesday to Thursday. Featuring in the SoE are Mariam Mayet of African Centre for Biosafety, South Africa and Mamadou Goita of IRPAD, Mali who will be speaking on “Who feeds the planet”; Firoze Manji