Japan has indicated interest in partnering Anambra farmers in cultivation, processing and exportation of ugu, onugbu and other vegetables with Nimo, Abatete, Oraukwu, Nawfija and Ogbunka communities lined up as pilot centres under Phase I.

The collaboration was attracted by the state government under the auspices of Small Holder Horticultural Empowerment and Promotion (SHEP) while Japanese participation to be sponsored by Japan International Agency (JICA).

Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Foster Ihejiofor, disclosed this yesterday while declaring open a three-day training for extension agents selected from the four agricultural zones of the state.

Describing the partnership as an indication of Japan’s endorsement of Gov. Chukwuma Soludo’s agricultural development policies, Ihejiofor also explained the collaboration as timely in calibrating Anambra’s economy through food sufficiency.

Explaining that the programme will focus on domestication of production and processing of vegetables, as well as distribution to ready markets in Nigeria and abroad by Anambra farmers, the commissioner urged the extension agents to see themselves as primary drivers of regenerative agriculture practice in line with the state government’s new farming templates.

Also speaking, Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) Manager, Jude Nwankwo promised that in the second phase of the partnership, the state government will double the number of benefitting communities, using Government Cash Counterpart Contribution (GCCC) funding.

Credit: Anambra Current News

I Need to go back to those days when salvation Message was More important than Prophecy.

Take Me back to those days when Sex Out of Wedlock was seen as a taboo not now when Sex is an Appreciation gift.

Can i go back to those days when pregnancy Outside Marriage was a shame to Families not now that it is a way of life.

Is there Anybody who know the Road to those Days? When descent dressing was the identity of responsibility not now when there is no difference between a Lunatic, a Mechanic and a Sane Man.

Where are those days when the beauty of a Woman was Found to proper dressing first, not now when an Average woman want to appear naked.

Please Can we find those days, when Divorce was a derogatory Language among Christians, not today when broken Marriages are now Celebrated.

i wish i Can go back to those days when true love was build on Sacrifice and trust not now when love is hanging on Sexual Capability and Money.

Where are those days when Men of God we're afraid of God and live by the word not now when they teach a different thing and live a different life style of their Choice.

Please wake Me up from this Sleep when we arrive at that world where Rapture and Resurrection was the Major Focus of the Church not now that Materialism is the Center Focus.

Have we really forgotten those days when if a Member of a Church fall into temptation, the Church will Cry and pray for his/her Restoration, not today when a Member will Commit a sin and the Church will give such one a position in the Church as long as he/she has Money.

Where are those days when Men will pray until they get Results, not now when all they want is Prophecy even when the said Prophecy has no Solution Or Mandate to Redeem .

Am looking for those days when so many Girls were Rejected and beaten up by their Parent's, some lost their Education while others were Cajoled by their Mates because they refuse to Compromise and they gave up all for Christ, not this days when Man's way of life is More important than God's way, and going to heaven is a dream for the lost.

I just remember those days when parents wanted their Children to Marry born again Christians, not today when parents want their daughter to marry Money bags even if they are Ritualists.

i weep and pray that the Owner of the Church will not Come and Meet his Church like this because Many Saints who has gone will feel disappointed and the Church itself May not Make the Rapture.

OH GOD!!!
please help your church
Please help us all.....Amen !

The relationship between youths or not yet married adults in modern society is regarded as a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship. This relationship In Christendom— is regarded as an immoral relationship as it is believed a lot of illicit affection and immorality could be perpetrated by both partners in the process. It is still a stage where the partners are not ready to settle down but they have seen each other and sort of "fallen in love" or have been infatuated with each other.

In respect of this, Dr Paul Enenche has shared a message on why young people should not waste their life in the not yet approved relationship. In his words as shared by Church Gist, the cleric has stressed thus, do not waste your life doing boyfriend and girlfriend when you are not yet licensed to think of getting married. The cleric has also Implored people not to waste their lifetime chasing things that do not matter. In his words, he has stressed that, Don't waste your life doing boyfriend and girlfriend when you're not yet licensed to think of getting married. If you're going to get married at the age of 26 or 27 and you're only 17 now, what are you doing with a girl? What is the thought of a man or woman for? You have no business with that realm, this has rendered so many people useless.

According to the cleric, he has also stressed the need for people to stay distinct and maintain a chaste lifestyle. In his words, he has implored that, until you have control of your flesh, you cannot have control of your future. The cleric has advised on the importance of leaving illicit relationships when it is not yet ripe enough to start them. He has advised people to focus on the most important things in life.

https://news-af.feednews.com/news/detail/50458163e23161960416f90b001e4e46?client=news

Quick Summary: The genetic code to resist sleeping sickness is called the APOL1 gene. And this gene, when activated by a bite from tse tse fly, destroys the kidney filtering system and over time, this eventually lead to kidney failure.

An Important Genetic Cause of Kidney Disease in Nigeria- APOL1 Mediated Kidney Disease

Ever wonder why so many people are falling victim to the problems of kidney failure in Nigeria and sub saharan Africa? Well, recent scientific advances show that the cause of this survival disadvantage in Africa is not only inherited from our parents but is part of our defensive response to overcome African sleeping sickness transmitted by the Tsetse fly. The genetic code to resist sleeping sickness that increases risk for kidney disease is called the APOL1 gene.

The growing problem of kidney disease around the world and in West Africa in particular is alarming. A casual look at social media pages very often show people reaching out for help to deal with the catastrophic physical and financial burden of kidney failure. Many Nigerians know someone personally who has or is suffering from the burden of kidney disease.

What is the reason for this? Well, for decades, the common medical advice has been that high blood pressure, high blood sugar and lifestyle choices like high alcohol intake, smoking and taking toxic herbal medications and remedies are the major causes of kidney disease and kidney failure in Nigeria.

However, recent medical advances in genetic testing and computational science in the last 20 years since the completion of the genome project have indicated that the cause of the plague of kidney disease in Nigeria and the broader sub saharan region is more complicated than just lifestyle choices or blood pressure. The cause seems to be in our cells and this cause has been part of our evolution as a people to survive against things in our environment that could kill us. What in our environment could kill us and make us have to adapt in such a way that we now suffer from kidney disease? Well, the answer has been linked to the story of our relationship with the Tsetse fly.

The Tsetse fly in Western and Sub Saharan Africa causes African sleeping sickness also called African trypanosomiasis. A bite from the tsetse fly releases the parasite into the blood that causes the disease. One of the first historical records of trypanosomiasis is by the famous Arabian geographer Abu Abdallah Yaqut (1179–1229). During his journey into Africa he found in the “Country of Gold” an underground village whose inhabitants and even their dogs were just skin and bones and asleep! The World Health Organization (WHO) in a 1998 report estimated the number of people infected to be about 300 000- likely an underestimation.

The Tsetse fly transmits a very serious and deadly disease called African trypanosomiasis or African sleeping sickness. The first stage of African sleeping sickness, known as the hemolymphatic phase, is characterized by fever, headaches, joint pains, and itching. Invasion of the circulatory and lymphatic systems by the parasites is associated with severe swelling of the lymph nodes, often to tremendous sizes. If left untreated, the disease overcomes the host’s defenses and can cause more extensive damage. The second phase of the disease, the neurological phase, begins when the parasite invades the brain and spinal cord. Disruption of the sleep cycle is a leading symptom of this stage and is the one that gave the disease the name ‘sleeping sickness.’ Infected individuals experience a disorganized and fragmented 24-hour rhythm of the sleep-wake cycle, resulting in daytime sleepiness and nighttime periods of wakefulness.

Human African Trypanosomiasis is causes by trypanosomes transmitted by the tsetse fly.

The 2 main species of the parasite Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense are most common in sub saharan Africa (B). The APOL1 gene is key to natural defenses to this infection and over time Africans have evolved even more effective gene variants to kill trypanosomes that resist the ancestral gene G0. These evolved gene variants are called G1 and G2 with a high prevalence in West Africa. You can see in the middle panel that Nigeria is ground zero and a hot spot for a high number of people with the G1 variant of APOL1.
So what has this history of the tsetse fly and African sleeping sickness got to do with kidney disease in Nigeria and other African countries? Well the story gets more interesting and the picture above tells part of the story where you can see an overlap in the occurrence of African sleeping sickness caused by trypanosomiasis with the defense against the illness. Simply speaking, we humans started competing with the tsetse fly. Over time, people affected by African sleeping sickness developed a resistance coded by a gene on chromosome 22 called the APOL1 gene. This gene produces a protein called APOL1 which circulates in the blood and is the tool the body uses to destroy the parasite injected into the body by the tsetse fly.

Over hundreds of years the parasite evolved resistance to this ancestral APOL1 gene (G0) and in response humans developed even more effective APOL1 called G1 and G2 variants. People with G1 and G2 variants of the APOL1 gene are able to resist infection transmitted by the tsetse fly. Approximately 23-46% of Nigerians have 2 alleles with either G1 and/or G2 while approximately 60% of Nigerians have at least 1 of the 2 genetic variants of APOL1 that also confers resistance to the infection. However, this survival advantage for people with 2 genetic variants of the APOL1 gene has been found to be a 12 times higher risk for progressive kidney disease.

The burden of kidney disease and kidney failure is now so common that several celebrities- a past president, musicians, actors, journalists have succumbed to the complications of this truly devastating disease. We do not know if APOL1 was the cause of their kidney disease but the chances are high that it may have been involved based on emerging research findings

But why does having an APOL1 gene variant increase the risk for kidney disease? Well, that has taken some time to figure out and scientists first figured out how APOL1 kills the trypanosome parasite. Essentially, the parasite while feeding on nutrients in the blood takes in the APOL1. The APOL1 then binds to structures in the parasite causing it to swell up, burst and die. APOL1 protein is also produced in other tissues as well as part of the defense against sleeping sickness infection and most importantly it is produced in the kidney. In the kidney, a special cell called the podocyte that helps in filtering the blood is damaged whenever APOL1 is activated in the kidney. What can activate APOL1 production in the kidney? Anything that injures the kidney or makes it think it is under attack by the parasite transmitted by the tsetse fly. This activated APOL1 in the kidney then kills the podocyte cell in the kidney in very much the same way that it kills the parasite leading to damage to the kidney filtration system of the kidney and eventually to rapidly progressive kidney problems and kidney failure. In fact is has been documented that patients with 2 APOL1 gene variants with kidney disease progress 2-3 times faster to kidney failure than patients with only 1 or no gene variants for the APOL1 gene.

QUESTIONS

Is there a test for APOL1 gene variants? The answer is yes. However, it is not easy to get by walking into any lab and it is only becoming more commonly available in places like the US. For now it is expensive.

Does everyone with 2 APOL1 genetic variants develop kidney disease? The answer is No and we do not yet know why. However, we do know that something can happen in the life of people with 2 APOL1 gene variants like infection, taking toxins contained in many of our herbal medicines that can hurt the kidney or other health problems that triggers increased production of APOL1 and that leads to accelerated kidney injury.

Does this mean that controlling blood pressure, body weight, blood sugar and avoiding excessive alcohol and smoking are no longer important? Absolutely not. These are still very important causes of kidney disease and can make the kidney disease in many of us who have 2 APOL1 gene variants progress much faster. So please continue to exercise, eat healthy, avoid excess alcohol, avoid smoking, get BP checks and take medication when prescribed.

Can the risk for APOL1 mediated kidney disease be inherited? Yes. If only one parent has a risk gene, it may be inherited by offspring but people with only one gene variant do not appear to be at increased risk for kidney disease. If both parents have the genetic variants, then the children can inherit the genetic variants and be at risk. Remember not all people with 2 variants will develop kidney disease and we do not yet know why.
Can APOL1 mediated kidney disease be treated? Well there are no specific treatments yet for this yet but efforts are under way in the US to develop treatments for this problem.

https://kidneysolutions./2020/03/21/an-important-genetic-cause-of-kidney-disease-in-nigeria-apol1-mediated-kidney-disease/

Consumers are being warned to steer clear of skin lightening creams that can "act like paint stripper".
Many contained the bleaching agent hydroquinone - the creams can also contain mercury.

Hydroquinone, described by the LGA as "the biological equivalent of paint stripper", can remove the top layer of skin, increasing the risk of skin cancer, and cause fatal liver and kidney damage. Mercury can cause similar life-threatening health problems.

FROM: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-49851669

I'm not a pig farmer, but I will be one someday. Here are some useful info I got  around the net.

The Pig Farmers Arena Whatsup Group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/IK2ErWI2xIeBzCOPggZVs2

Lesson 115

PIGS SALES SCAM ALERT!!!

Hello great minds, I discovered a new scam ongoing in the piggery sales sector and I want to alert potential  sales of pigs to this new system. It involves the use of this so called 300kg or 500kg hanging scales

Some agents of pigs go about with this type of scales and when they get to your farm while scaling with it, they expertly manipulate the scales with a little rubber tied to the back of the scale in such a way that pigs that is supposed to weigh 62kg can weigh 48 kg now.

They are even very wicked removing as much 25kg from pigs weighing over 150kgs


They know approximately what kgs they are pulling out and after they ask the buyer to do kill and divide with them.

So if you are selling maybe 4000kgs now ,you might end up collecting cash for 3450kg ,the remaining 550kgs will be shared by the buyer and the agents.

I think this is very wicked and despicable.

How would the farmer recover his expenses? How can the agent even have more pigs to sell later self.?

As soon as the agent told me about this on my trip to purchase, I tactically told the farmers to go and get thier scales and not to allow any agent near it.


Even if they are using your own, they know how to manipulate the scale to give a smaller readings.


So don't allow the buyer or agent get near your hanging scales if you want to sell and don't have a walk in scale.

Always be extra vigilant especially while dealing with ogun state and Lagos and Ibadan axis agents.

Get your scales and your scaling boys yourself.

Just thought this will be worth sharing since my conscience won't allow me to keep quiet in this midst of this day light robbery.
Thank you and pls share if you know other ways farmers are being scammed of thier money.

Nicotine [font=&quot]
One of the top three insecticides in the 1880s, nicotine in several forms is still widely used. Nicotine comes from the tobacco plant and is extremely toxic to insects. The great advantage of homemade nicotine tea is that it is very short lived, retaining its toxicity for only a few hours after spraying. It is relatively nonhazardous to bees and lady beetles because of its short persistence.[/font]
[font=&quot]
Protection Offered: Nicotine is effective against ground and soil pests, especially root aphids and fungus gnats, and on many leaf-chewing insects, such as aphids, immature scales, leafhoppers, thrips, leaf miners, pear psylla, and asparagus beetle larvae.[/font]
[font=&quot]
How To Make: You can brew your own batch of nicotine tea by soaking tobacco leaves or cigarette butts in water to make a spray. Soak 1 cup of dried, crushed tobacco leaves, or an equivalent amount of cigarette butts, in one gallon of warm water with 1/4-teaspoon pure soap added. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth after it has soaked for 1/2 hour. The solution will keep for several weeks if stored in a tightly closed container.[/font]
[font=&quot]
How to Use: For soil pests, pour the spray mixture onto the soil in the area of the stem base and root zone. For leaf pests, spray leaves thoroughly, especially the undersides. Nicotine can be absorbed by plant leaves and remain there for several weeks. To be safe, use nicotine only on young plants and only up to one month before harvest. It's probably safest not to spray nicotine on eggplant, peppers or tomatoes. While most tobacco cultivars now grown are resistant to tobacco mosaic virus, nicotine sprays could contain the pathogen, which will infect nightshade family crops.

Tobacco teas are sometimes prepared by home gardeners to control garden pests, and while not as toxic as nicotine sulfate sprays, any nicotine solution toxic enough to kill insects can also be harmful to humans.[/font]

[font=&quot]Tobacco or Nicotine Spray:[/font]
[font=&quot]
This mixture is great for combating many different types of bugs; especially caterpillars, aphids, and many types of worms.

1 cup of tobacco
1 gallon of water
3 tablespoons of liquid dish soap

Mix tobacco and water in container. Allow mixture to set for approximately 24 hours, and then check the color. It should be the color of weak tea. If it is too light, allow to sit longer, if it is too dark, dilute with more water. Add the liquid soap to the mixture, and spray on plants.

Warning: Don't use this solution on peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, or any other member of the solanaceous family. Tobacco chemicals can kill these types of plants![/font]
[font=&quot]Nicotine Pesticide:[/font]
[FONT=&quot]1 bag of chewing tobacco
1 nylon stocking

Put the tobacco in the stocking, and tie the end closed. Put the stocking in one gallon of water, and let it sit overnight. This will create a “tea”. In the morning, remove the stocking from your tea, then add:

1 cup liquid dish soap
1 cup human urine

Mix well and use a pump sprayer to spray your plants – give them a bath, spray leaves, the ground near the base, etc.


https://www.autoflower.net/forums/threads/organic-pesticides-contributed-by-phreedom_man-thanks-phree.5121/

The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973.

The court’s controversial but expected ruling gives individual states the power to set their own abortion laws without concern of running afoul of Roe, which for nearly half a century had permitted abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

Almost half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision. Other states plan to maintain more liberal rules governing the termination of pregnancies.

https://rifnote.com/2022/06/24/supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-ending-50-years-of-federal-abortion-rights/

Wonders shall never end. Can you believe that some woman mix transformer oil with groundout oil and use it to try akara. Why would they do that? It will help prevent the groundnut oil from drying up. But transformer oil is toxic. It can cause cancer and organ failure. Why are people so stupid? Here is the news:
.

The Federal Government is making plans to prosecute users of PolyChlorinated Biphenyl (PCBs), popularly known as transformer oil, in frying “akara” (bean cake), plantain chips, chicken and other food items.

Prof. Babajide Alloy, a Consultant to the Federal Ministry of Environment, made the disclosure on Tuesday in an interview with newsmen on the sidelines of a workshop in Calabar.

According to him, the consumption of food prepared from the chemical substance will expose the public to cancers of the lungs, heart, kidney and liver diseases.

“For a long time, PCBs was the cooling liquid used in electricity transformers, until the world found out that this oil was toxic ,and is trying to phase it out

“Jail term awaits those caught using PCBs to fry akara, chicken and plantain chips at road side to sell to the public because the oil is toxic and carcinogenic.

“We found out that it is all over the place in Nigeria, dump-sites, and in old National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) compounds,” he said.

Alloy said a survey carried out by the ministry revealed that the oil was currently being used in making food like akara.

The consultant added that the unsuspecting public were being deceived by the likeness of the oil to the commonly used groundnut oil.

“Some food vendors now mix PCBs with groundnut oil to fry akara and sell to the general public.

“Of course, they may not know how hazardous what they are doing is. This exercise is to sensitise policy makers and everyone of this malaise.

“It is important to note that spillage of PCBs is always a danger when equipment is to be transported; it should, therefore, be transported only in sealed containers,” he said.

The workshop was organised for state councils, regulatory bodies, power operators and custom officers on application of PCBs regulations and guidelines for Environmentally Sound Management (ESM) of PCBs.

https://www.pulse.ng/news/local/fg-to-prosecute-food-vendors-using-transformer-oil/mmj8ksm

Pls, who knows the best way to control flies in a poultry farm?

Hello. Please I want to be sure of what a woman told me. She said I shud not apppy npk to the cocoyams i planted. Ghat they will rot. How true?

*IDLE AND WASTED GENERATION?*

Topic 1:
Big brother Naija: Wunmi caught on camera having sex with Musa

Nigerians ??
Comments - 60.7k
Likes - 100.3k
Shares - 70.8k

Topic 2
Nigerian Govt signs power generation contract with Siemens to boost electricity.

Nigerians ??
Comments - 14
Likes - 12
Shares - 16

- Number of votes cast in ongoing Big Brother Nigeria = About 170m

- Total number of votes cast during General election 2019 = 27m

*IT'S JUST FUN?*
*NO!*
*BUT STUPIDITY.*

*See why*

Number of votes cast during “Big Brother Nigeria” = 170million votes @ N30 per sms for a show that contributes absolutely nothing but immorality to their lives .

SAD SUMMARY
170 Million votes Multiplied by N30 = N 5.1 billion and the winner got N90 million plus an SUV worth maybe N9m.
And the organisers smile to the bank on their stupidity !!!

It is neither a talent show or life enhancing or promoting show. A show where two adults are kept in a cage to freely give & take sex on National Television, while the organisers make more money from the youths.

If INEC organises general election this weekend and ask Nigerian youths to vote on their mobile phones @ N10 per SMS to elect leaders that will shape their futures & the country, they will ask Nigerian Government to credit their accounts first before they will agree to vote in that magnitude.

“Wasted Generation” ~ Prof. Wole Soyinka called them.

“A generation that play too much, sleep too much and engage in idle chatter and gossip" ~ Chief Obafemi Awolowo foresaw

“A generation of illiterate graduates” ~ Atiku Abubakar called them in 2016

A generation that never plan for tomorrow.... Hopeless generation. Oladosu Oluwafemi called them 2020

A generation that are constantly not concerned about the deteriorating conditions of their senses & not bothered about their own future~ Osquare78 knows them.

“Idle youths who sit and do nothing, but expecting everything from govt free” ~Buhari surmised about them

Brood of vipers...- John the Baptist called them



*Copied from whatsup*

*IDLE AND WASTED GENERATION?*

Topic 1:
Big brother Naija: Wunmi caught on camera having sex with Musa

Nigerians ??
Comments - 60.7k
Likes - 100.3k
Shares - 70.8k

Topic 2
Nigerian Govt signs power generation contract with Siemens to boost electricity.

Nigerians ??
Comments - 14
Likes - 12
Shares - 16

- Number of votes cast in ongoing Big Brother Nigeria = About 170m

- Total number of votes cast during General election 2019 = 27m

*IT'S JUST FUN?*
*NO!*
*BUT STUPIDITY.*

*See why*

Number of votes cast during “Big Brother Nigeria” = 170million votes @ N30 per sms for a show that contributes absolutely nothing but immorality to their lives .

SAD SUMMARY
170 Million votes Multiplied by N30 = N 5.1 billion and the winner got N90 million plus an SUV worth maybe N9m.
And the organisers smile to the bank on their stupidity !!!

It is neither a talent show or life enhancing or promoting show. A show where two adults are kept in a cage to freely give & take sex on National Television, while the organisers make more money from the youths.

If INEC organises general election this weekend and ask Nigerian youths to vote on their mobile phones @ N10 per SMS to elect leaders that will shape their futures & the country, they will ask Nigerian Government to credit their accounts first before they will agree to vote in that magnitude.

“Wasted Generation” ~ Prof. Wole Soyinka called them.

“A generation that play too much, sleep too much and engage in idle chatter and gossip" ~ Chief Obafemi Awolowo foresaw

“A generation of illiterate graduates” ~ Atiku Abubakar called them in 2016

A generation that never plan for tomorrow.... Hopeless generation. Oladosu Oluwafemi called them 2020

A generation that are constantly not concerned about the deteriorating conditions of their senses & not bothered about their own future~ Osquare78 knows them.

“Idle youths who sit and do nothing, but expecting everything from govt free” ~Buhari surmised about them

Brood of vipers...- John the Baptist called them



*Copied from whatsup*

Somewhere between three and four billion years ago, algae first appeared. This may not sound exciting, but it paved the way for life on earth and could ultimately point to part of the solution to today’s energy crisis.

Algae, along with other early organisms like cyaonobacteria, is photosynthetic. This means that it’s able to capture carbon and breath out oxygen in return. And we need oxygen to breathe. During the following billions of years, more photosynthetic organisms developed: plants.

The interesting thing about plants is that they convert CO2 into chemical energy - glucose - and produce water and oxygen. So basically plants do what we’re struggling to achieve, in a world threatened by climate change: they capture CO2, produce energy and keep our air clean and breathable. So why can’t we do the same thing? Well, we can’t “do” photosynthesis, but we can use it.

How it all started
At Wageningen University in the Netherlands, a crazy assistant professor, Bert Hamelers, thought that it should be possible to produce electricity from living plants, without harvesting them. He hired a Postdoc to do an experiment and he succeeded. They wrote a research proposal and hired a PhD-student to do more work on it: me.

I didn’t want to be in academia (who wants to be in a lab all day?) but not knowing what to do otherwise I ended up doing a PhD. Basically, my professor lured me into it by telling me that a spin-off company should be created from the research project, and he thought I would be fit to lead it. After just one month, I knew that I’d made the best decision of my life.

How it works

So how do you produce electricity with living plants? Simply by using the natural processes that already occur. In short: the plant produces organic matter via photosynthesis. Only part of this organic matter is then used for its own growth. The rest is excreted via the roots. Around the roots, bacteria feed on the organic matter and they release electrons. If you’re able to harvest the electrons into an electrode, you can couple the first electrode to a counter-electrode and build an electrical circuit, like in a battery. The electrons flow back into the natural system via the counter-electrode, so it’s completely circular.

Because we use the natural processes around the plant, nature is not harmed. It works day and night, summer and winter. It only stops when the plant and its surroundings completely dry up or freeze over. So wetlands would be the ultimate source of electricity. Probably the best thing about this technology is that it can be combined with existing applications for the same land. No more competing claims for food versus fuel: put both rice production and power on the same paddy
.
How we can use it
During my PhD, I worked on improving the power output from plants in the lab. At the same time I started a spin-off company, Plant-e, together with my colleague David Strik, to find applications for the technology. When I graduated in 2012 we launched the first product: a turning globe fuelled by the electricity from a plant. Unfortunately, at that time we couldn’t get the product produced so our first market entry failed. But we were able to attract some financing, so we hired some smart young people and worked on the next product.

In 2014 the first product was launched successfully: a modular system. Basically we sell planters with plants and wires that can be connected to LED lights, for example. This is not going to replace coal-fired power plants, but it’s a start. This is the first step towards using what nature has developed over billions of years, without interfering with nature.

The modular system can be used to set up small, self-powered sites in cities, but it is not scalable. So a new system is under development. This new system is a tube, which contains both electrodes and can be drilled horizontally in the root-zone of the plants. This way existing plants can be used to produce electricity and any wetland would ultimately be able to produce electricity.
The next energy revolution?

After wind, solar and hydropower, the full range of biomass sources are now ready for energy production. Our energy revolution has already started. We go from large scale to decentralized energy production, and we start to realize that no one individual source is going to save us.

It’s going to be the full range of alternative, renewable and sustainable technologies that are slowly replacing fossil fuels. I don’t think that one small company of five people in Wageningen, the Netherlands, is going to revolutionize our energy production. But I do want to be part of it.

Author: Marjolein Helder is the CEO of Plant-e, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer. She is participating in the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/roots-living-plants/

George Monbiot

Scientists are replacing crops and livestock with food made from microbes and water. It may save humanity’s bacon

Wed 8 Jan 2020

It sounds like a miracle, but no great technological leaps were required. In a commercial lab on the outskirts of Helsinki, I watched scientists turn water into food. Through a porthole in a metal tank, I could see a yellow froth churning. It’s a primordial soup of bacteria, taken from the soil and multiplied in the laboratory, using hydrogen extracted from water as its energy source. When the froth was siphoned through a tangle of pipes and squirted on to heated rollers, it turned into a rich yellow flour.

This flour is not yet licensed for sale. But the scientists, working for a company called Solar Foods, were allowed to give me some while filming our documentary Apocalypse Cow. I asked them to make me a pancake: I would be the first person on Earth, beyond the lab staff, to eat such a thing. They set up a frying pan in the lab, mixed the flour with oat milk, and I took my small step for man. It tasted … just like a pancake.

But pancakes are not the intended product. Such flours are likely soon to become the feedstock for almost everything. In their raw state, they can replace the fillers now used in thousands of food products. When the bacteria are modified they will create the specific proteins needed for lab-grown meat, milk and eggs. Other tweaks will produce lauric acid – goodbye palm oil – and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids – hello lab-grown fish. The carbohydrates that remain when proteins and fats have been extracted could replace everything from pasta flour to potato crisps. The first commercial factory built by Solar Foods should be running next year.

The hydrogen pathway used by Solar Foods is about 10 times as efficient as photosynthesis. But because only part of a plant can be eaten, while the bacterial flour is mangetout, you can multiply that efficiency several times. And because it will be brewed in giant vats the land efficiency, the company estimates, is roughly 20,000 times greater. Everyone on Earth could be handsomely fed, and using a tiny fraction of its surface. If, as the company intends, the water used in the process (which is much less than required by farming) is electrolysed with solar power, the best places to build these plants will be deserts.

We are on the cusp of the biggest economic transformation, of any kind, for 200 years. While arguments rage about plant- versus meat-based diets, new technologies will soon make them irrelevant. Before long, most of our food will come neither from animals nor plants, but from unicellular life. After 12,000 years of feeding humankind, all farming except fruit and veg production is likely to be replaced by ferming: brewing microbes through precision fermentation. This means multiplying particular micro-organisms, to produce particular products, in factories.I know some people will be horrified by this prospect. I can see some drawbacks. But I believe it comes in the nick of time.

Several impending disasters are converging on our food supply, any of which could be catastrophic. Climate breakdown threatens to cause what scientists call “ multiple breadbasket failures”, through synchronous
heatwaves and other impacts. The UN forecasts that by 2050 feeding the world will require a 20% expansion in agriculture’s global water use . But water use is already maxed out in many places: aquifers are vanishing, rivers are failing to reach the sea. The glaciers that supply half the population of Asia are rapidly retreating. Inevitable global heating – due to greenhouse gases already released – is likely to reduce dry season rainfall in critical areas, turning fertile plains into dustbowls .

A global soil crisis threatens the very basis of our subsistence, as great tracts of arable land lose their fertility through erosion, compaction and contamination. Phosphate supplies, crucial for agriculture, are dwindling fast . Insectageddon threatens
catastrophic pollination failures. It is hard to see how farming can feed us all even until 2050, let alone to the end of the century and beyond.

Food production is ripping the living world apart. Fishing and farming are, by a long way, the greatest cause of extinction and loss of the diversity and abundance of wildlife.

Farming is a major cause of climate breakdown, the biggest cause of river pollution and a hefty source of air pollution. Across vast tracts of the world’s surface, it has replaced complex wild ecosystems with simplified human food chains. Industrial fishing is driving cascading ecological collapse in seas around the world. Eating is now a moral minefield, as almost everything we put in our mouths – from beef to avocados, cheese to chocolate, almonds to tortilla chips, salmon to peanut butter – has an insupportable environmental cost.

But just as hope appeared to be evaporating, the new technologies I call farmfree food create astonishing possibilities to save both people and planet. Farmfree food will allow us to hand back vast areas of land and sea to nature, permitting rewilding and
carbon drawdown on a massive scale.

It means an end to the exploitation of animals, an end to most deforestation, a massive reduction in the use of pesticides and fertiliser, the end of trawlers and longliners. It’s our best hope of stopping what some have called the “sixth great extinction”, but I prefer to call the great extermination . And, if it’s done right, it means cheap and abundant food for everyone.
Research by the thinktank RethinkX suggests that proteins from precision fermentation will be around 10 times cheaper than animal protein by 2035. The result, it says, will be the near-complete collapse of the livestock industry. The new food economy will “replace an extravagantly inefficient system that requires enormous quantities of inputs and produces huge amounts of waste with one that is precise, targeted, and tractable”. Using tiny areas of land, with a massively reduced requirement for water and nutrients, it “presents the greatest opportunity for environmental restoration in human history”.
Not only will food be cheaper, it will also be healthier. Because farmfree foods will be built up from simple ingredients, rather than broken down from complex ones, allergens, hard fats and other unhealthy components can be screened out. Meat will still be meat, though it will be grown in factories on
collagen scaffolds, rather than in the bodies of animals. Starch will still be starch, fats will still be fats. But food is likely to be better, cheaper and much less damaging to the living planet.
It might seem odd for someone who has spent his life calling for political change to enthuse about a technological shift. But nowhere on Earth can I see sensible farm policies developing. Governments provide an astonishing £560bn a year in farm subsidies, and almost all of them are perverse and destructive, driving deforestation, pollution and the killing of wildlife. Research by the Food and Land Use Coalition found that only 1% of the money is used to protect the living world. It failed to find “any examples of governments using their fiscal instruments to directly support the expansion of supply of healthier and more nutritious food.”

Nor is the mainstream debate about farming taking us anywhere, except towards further catastrophe. There’s a widespread belief that the problem is intensive farming, and the answer is extensification (producing less food per hectare). It’s true that intensive farming is highly damaging, but extensive farming is even worse . Many people are rightly concerned about urban sprawl. But agricultural sprawl – which covers a much wider area – is a far greater threat to the natural world. Every hectare of land used by farming is a hectare not used for wildlife and complex living systems.

A paper in Nature suggests that, per kilo of food produced, extensive farming causes greater greenhouse gas emissions, soil loss, water use and nitrogen and phosphate pollution than intensive farming. If everyone ate pasture-fed meat, we would need several new planets on which to produce it.

Farmfree production promises a far more stable and reliable food supply that can be grown anywhere, even in countries without farmland. It could be crucial to ending world hunger. But there is a hitch: a clash between consumer and producer interests. Many millions of people, working in farming and food processing, will eventually lose their jobs. Because the new processes are so efficient, the employment they create won’t match the employment they destroy.

RethinkX envisages an extremely rapid “death spiral ” in the livestock industry. Only a few components, such as the milk proteins casein and whey, need to be produced through fermentation for profit margins across an entire sector to collapse. Dairy farming in the United States, it claims, will be “all but bankrupt by 2030”. It believes that the American beef industry’s revenues will fall by 90% by 2035.

While I doubt the collapse will be quite that fast, in one respect the thinktank underestimates the scale of the transformation. It fails to mention the extraordinary shift taking place in feedstock production to produce alternatives to plant products, of the kind pioneered in Helsinki.

This is likely to hit arable farming as hard as cultured milk and meat production will hit livestock farming. Solar Foods thinks its products could reach cost parity with the world’s cheapest form of protein (soya from South America) within five years. Instead of pumping ever more subsidies into a dying industry, governments should be investing in helping farmers into other forms of employment, while providing relief funds for those who will suddenly lose their livelihoods.
Another hazard is the potential concentration of the farmfree food industry. We should strongly oppose the patenting of key technologies, to ensure the widest possible distribution of ownership. If governments regulate this properly, they could break the hegemony of the massive companies that now control global food commodities . If they don’t, they could reinforce it. In this sector, as in all others, we need strong anti-trust laws. We must also ensure that the new foods always have lower carbon footprints than the old ones: farmfree producers should power their operations entirely from low-carbon sources. This is a time of momentous choices, and we should make them together.

We can’t afford to wait passively for technology to save us. Over the next few years we could lose almost everything, as magnificent habitats such as the rainforests of Madagascar, West Papua and Brazil are felled to produce cattle, soya or palm oil. By temporarily shifting towards a plant-based diet with the lowest possible impacts (no avocados or out-of-season asparagus), we can help buy the necessary time to save magnificent species and places while these new technologies mature. But farmfree food offers hope where hope was missing. We will soon be able to feed the world without devouring it.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist. His film Apocalypse Cow is on Channel 4 at 10pm on Wednesday

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/08/lab-grown-food-destroy-farming-save-planet

Hi everyone. I am new here. I am a new animal sciences graduate intending to learn from those before me in the livestock business. I particularly need advice on which small I can start with a modest capital like say #300,000. Thank you all.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says it has disbursed N791 billion to over three million farmers across the 36 states, under its Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP).

The Director, Development Finance Department of the bank, Mr Yusuf Yila, made this known on Friday in Abuja, during an interaction with newsmen.

Yila said the apex bank had reduced interest rate on the loan from nine per cent to five per cent, to encourage more farmers to have access to the credit.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the ABP was launched on Nov. 17, 2015 and designed to provide farm inputs and cash to Small Holder Farmers (SHFs).

The programme was intended to create a linkage between Anchor Companies involved in food processing and SHFs of the required key agricultural commodities, through commodity associations.

He said the programme had helped participating farmers to improve their yields, especially maize from initial two metric tons per hectare, to five metric tons per hectare, while that of rice to four metric tons per hectare.

Yela said the bank was also investing in reducing post-harvest loses of farm produce, by encouraging dry season farming , describing it as “better in reducing such losses.

“Agriculture works better in the dry season, because you cannot control water during the rainy season, but you can control it during the dry season by using irrigation.

“The bank is also building silos and irrigation dams to reduce losses,’’ he said.
Yila said the apex bank had also disbursed about N312 billion, in energy infrastructure support through National Mass Metering Programme.

He explained that the programme was initiated to bridge the six million metering gap in the country, adding that 670 thousand meters had been distributed across the country.

“We are also ensuring value addition in the scheme, by ensuring the meters are not fully imported but assembled in Nigeria.
“By that, we are creating thousands of jobs and also supporting economic diversification,’’ the director said.
(NAN).

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/08/food-security-cbn-disburses-n791bn-to-3m-farmers/

About 13 million people could suffer acute food insecurity in Northern Nigeria in the next few months, says the United Nations (UN) – Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Rhoda Dia, Project Manager, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – Global Environment Facility (GEF), in charge of the Resilient Food Security Project, gave out this information on Wednesday while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Ms Dia said the warning had become imperative because the country was facing growing levels of acute food insecurity due to decades of insecurity across the country.
She said the insecurity had resulted in increasing poverty and economic crises.
The situation has been worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and recently, the series of clashes between farmers and herders, said Ms Dia.

She stated that women, girls and the elderly were the most vulnerable groups to climate change, adding that it was because they were highly exposed to climate risks.

Ms Dia said that the adaptive capacity of these groups was low, which according to her was constrained by poor quality of access to, and control of resources.

She added that they were more likely to live in poverty, as they were traditionally excluded from the decision-making process at local, national, and international levels.

“Food production requires the use of valuable resources such as land, ecosystems, water, energy among others and its wastage results in high water and carbon footprint losses,” Ms Dia said.

She said that the global estimate of agricultural waste produced yearly was approximately 1,000 million tonnes with a current market size for waste to energy of 30 billion dollars at a rate of 4.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, the project manager said that Nigeria’s palm oil production industry alone generated over 90 million tonnes of effluent annually.

“The country is also generating 4.34 million tonnes of rice straw and 0.9 million of rice husk, and has an estimated 19.5 million cows which also generate waste.

“With the increasing Nigeria population, it is projected that the quantity of agricultural waste generated in the country will triple in the coming decades,” she said.

Ms Dia said that with respect to agricultural waste, there existed the potential of resourcefully reusing the materials to reduce environmental harm and boost soil fertility and farm productivity.

She said that the time was ripe for the northern region to tap into the potential present in converting agricultural wastes to energy as well as other economically viable repurposed products.

Ms Dia said it was against this backdrop that Sonvisage Nig. Ltd. in collaboration with the UNDP- GEF- IAP Project was training extension agents from project communities.

She said the training was on Waste-to-Wealth that is, rice and groundnut waste re-purpose for self-reliance training.

The UNDP-GEF is currently training extension agents in Kano on how to turn waste to energy (briquettes making) and waste to animal feed (livestock and poultry).

On July 19, President Muhammadu Buhari blamed floods and insecurity for hampering his administration’s efforts at food security.
This is as the Central Bank announced on Wednesday that over N750 billion has been disbursed to three million farmers to boost food production in the country.

https://gazettengr.com/acute-hunger-looming-in-northern-nigeria-un-fao/

South Korean students are being paid to use eco-friendly toilet that takes methane from poop to power building.

Using the bathroom could pay for your coffee at a university in South Korea, where human waste is being used to help power a science building.

Cho Jae-weon, an urban and environmental engineering professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in southeast Korea, has designed an eco-friendly toilet connected to a laboratory that uses excrement to produce biogas and manure.

The BeeVi toilet — a portmanteau of the words 'bee' and 'vision' — uses a vacuum pump to send feces into an underground tank, reducing water use.
Once there, microorganisms break down the waste into methane, which becomes a source of energy for the building.
The gas powers a stove, hot-water boiler and solid oxide fuel cell.

'If we think out of the box, feces has precious value to make energy and manure,' said Cho. 'I have put this value into ecological circulation.'

The average adult defecates about 17 ounces a day, which can be converted to 13 gallons of methane, according to Cho.
That's enough energy to generate 0.5kWh of electricity, enough to charge your phone for an hour every day for a month or drive a car for about three-quarters of a mile.

Cho isn't just relying on altruism or environmental conscientiousness to get people to use his eco-toilet, either: He's devised a virtual currency, Ggool, ('honey' in Korean) and pays users, mostly students, 10 Ggool a day to hit the can.
The currency can be used to buy goods on campus—like freshly brewed coffee, instant noodles, fruit and even books.
The students can pick up the products they want at a special Ggool market and scan a QR code to pay for their goods.
'I had only ever thought that feces is dirty, but now it is a treasure of great value to me,' Heo Hui-jin, a postgraduate student at the university, said in the Ggool market. 'I even talk about feces during mealtimes, to think about buying any book I want.'
Not all efforts at creating environmentally friendly toilets have proven successful in the long run: in September, UK conservation group the Waterwise Project says dual-flush toilets, intended to save water is actually wasting billions of gallons every year, far more than they save.

Dual-flush toilets are prone to leaks, the group says, and are the leading culprit in the 88 million gallons of water wasted a day.

'Because so many dual-flush toilets flow continuously, that water loss is now exceeding the amount of water they should be saving nationally,' Andrew Tucker, water efficiency manager at Thames Water, told the BBC.

Popularized in the West in the 1980s, the two-button toilets were seen as environmentally friendly because they give patrons a choice of how much water to use: one button releases a full 1.6-gallons for solid waste, while the other just half of that for urine.

But Thames Water found as many of half of its customers used the wrong button—or pressed both simultaneously.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9771229/South-Korean-toilet-turns-excrement-power-digital-currency.html

The Department of Petroleum Resources says the pump price of petrol in Nigeria may rise up to as much as N1000 per litre when the petrol subsidy regime comes to an end without an alternative energy source.
DPR Director, Sarki Auwalu, stated this while responding to questions and comments generated by a paper he delivered in Lagos, recently, at the Second Quarter, 2021 Business Dinner of Petroleum Club Lagos.
Responding to the subsidy concerns and the disparity in the petrol consumption figures given by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the DPR, Auwalu acknowledged that Nigeria was spending so much on petrol subsidy.

He said eliminating it would require making alternative fuel available to Nigerians and that failure to do that could plunge Nigerians into paying higher petrol prices when subsidy is removed.

According to a statement on the DPR website on Monday titled, ‘DPR: Without Alternative Energy, Petrol Price Will Rise On Subsidy Removal’, Auwalu stated that Nigerians may pay as high as N1, 000 to buy one litre of petrol in the country when subsidy on petrol is removed and when the alternative energy or autogas gas policy becomes fully operational.

He, however, said the alternative fuel regime comes with initial cost as it will lead to spending $400 to convert one vehicles from running on petrol or diesel to running on either Liquefied Natural Gas or Compressed Natural Gas.

Auwalu maintained that converting eight million public vehicles currently present in Nigeria to gas-powered will cumulatively cost $3.2 billion to achieve.

He said, “So, to eliminate subsidy, they don’t call it subsidy anymore now, it’s under-recovery of purchase. So, to eliminate under-recovery, what you need is alternative fuel. Without an alternative, you will subject people to higher prices and that is why we go for price freedom.

“As at today, there are 22 million cars in Nigeria. Eight million are for public use. Imagine if you want to convert every car into gas, the average cost of conversion is $400. Converting eight million cars requires $3.2 billion. To do that, there are a lot of environmental investors which can invest and recover from the sale of gas and we are encouraging that.

“Once that is achieved, you will see that PMS can be sold at N1,000. After all, the average distance covered by one-gallon equivalent when you compare it with LNG or CNG with respect to energy for mobility is 2.7 against one. One for PMS, 2.7 for LNG or CNG.
”So, with that advantage, you will see that it creates an opportunity for this industry again. The issue of subsidy, the volume will all vanish and that is what we are working towards.”

https://punchng.com/petrol-pricell-rise-to-n1000-per-litre-if-dpr/