Tag: Isaiah Esipisu

African Agro-Processors Call for Policies Conducive to Local Manufacturing — Global Issues

Experts are calling on countries to change their policies to protect locally produced products. For example, Nigeria is an exporter of rubber but imports tyres; Ghana exports cocoa, but Switzerland is known for chocolate. Here a worker in a factory in Abidjan holds a block of rubber meant for export for processing into finished products abroad.
  • by Isaiah Esipisu (dar es salaam)
  • Inter Press Service

DAR ES SALAAM, Sep 15 (IPS) – Experts at the Africa Food Systems Forum (AGRF) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have called on African governments to make and review existing policies to protect the processing and agro-industrialisation of locally produced agricultural products.

During the launch of the Deal Room, Mohammed Dewji, President of MeTL Group of Companies in Tanzania, observed that agriculture will remain meaningless without agri-processing. https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/05/kenyas-dryland-farmers-embrace-regenerative-farming-to-brave-tough-climate/

“Tanzania produces cotton, and it is perhaps the third largest producer. How come it has only three textile firms? We are farming the cotton, ginning it, and exporting the same to China, where the final product is produced, died, and printed, and then it is sent back to us. Because of taxes involved at the local manufacturing level, we cannot compete,” he said.

“Unless we put in place correct policies that will favour local manufacturing, we will continue talking about cocoa from Ghana and chocolate from Switzerland,” he told delegates at the Deal Room.

The Deal Room is a matchmaking platform hosted at the AGRF, aiming to drive new business deals and commitments, where companies in the agriculture and agribusiness sectors can access finance, mentorship, and market entry solutions to support their growth objectives.

According to Wanjohi Ndagu, the Partner and Investment Director at Pearl Capital Partners Ltd based in Uganda, many African governments have policies that favour importation even when farmers in those countries have bumper harvests of the same product.

“We need policies that are able to protect farmers and local production,” he said.

Other than cocoa in Ghana and chocolate from Switzerland, countries like Ivory Coast and Nigeria are net exporters of natural rubber, which is processed and brought back to them as car tyres, footwear, and rubber-based industrial goods.

Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ivory Coast are net exporters of cashew nuts but importers of roasted and processed cashew nuts, cashew butter, and other value-added cashew products.

Kenya is currently delving into the exportation of raw avocado, but the country has always imported particularly avocado cosmetic products.

However, all is not lost.

Rwanda was showcased as one of the success stories in Africa where, through favourable policies, the country has created a conducive environment attracting investment into the agro-processing sector.

“Our country’s Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation has enabled us to move the sector from subsistence to a knowledge-based, value-creating sector,” said Nelly Mukazayire, the Deputy CEO of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB).

To make work more accessible and attractive to investors, the country has created a one-stop-centre where investors in any given sector, including agro-processing, are given services right from the search for a business name, business registration, generation of unique identification of the registered business, the opening of the business bank account and issuance of relevant permits and licenses, and the entire process takes a maximum of eight hours for the business to become a legal entity.

In many other African countries, such processes can take more than four months and, in some cases, a year for a business to get proper registration, and this, according to the delegates at the AGRF, slows down the rate of investment.

“Investors in the agriculture sector in Rwanda also have an opportunity to get up to seven years of tax holiday and reduced corporate income taxes on exports,” said Mukazayire.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the country launched what is today known as the Manufacture and Build to Recover Programme (MBRP), aiming to boost economic recovery efforts with specific incentives for the manufacturing, agro-processing, construction and real estate development sectors.

Through MBRP, manufacturers with a capital of USD1 million and above are given import duty exemption and Value Added Tax (VAT) exemption for imported construction materials unavailable in East Africa, VAT exemption for machinery and raw materials sourced domestically and VAT exemption for construction materials sourced domestically.

However, the capital for agro-processing was capped at USD 100,000 to support the sector’s growth.

During the AGRF Deal Room event, Brent Malahay, the Chief Strategy Officer at the Equity Group, called on investors to take advantage of the bank’s ‘Africa recovery and resilience plan,’ whose aim is to capacitate, finance and connect East African Community value chains to global supply chains.

“Through this plan, Equity Group will leverage off a region that gives access to critical raw materials, supports industrial capacity needs and an entrepreneurial and innovative local workforce, and the one that provides a sizeable market that is increasingly becoming more integrated,” said Malahay.

During the event, Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), announced an investment of USD4 million into VALUE4HER, AGRA’s Deal Room product, which is a continental initiative aimed at strengthening women’s agribusiness enterprises and enhancing voice and advocacy across Africa.

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Kenya Moots Disbanding the Loss and Damage Fund, Seeks Fair Equitable Climate Action — Global Issues

While Africa has made a negligible contribution to climate change and is responsible for two to three percent of global emissions, it’s highly vulnerable. The debate on how to compensate and support Africa continues. Now there is a suggestion that the Loss and Damage fund may not be the route to go to ensure Africa and other vulnerable nations are compensated. This photo shows the flooded offices of the Kenya Wildlife Services following the swelling of Lake Baringo. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS
  • by Isaiah Esipisu (bonn)
  • Inter Press Service

BONN, Jun 07 (IPS) – The Climate Change envoy to the President of Kenya has asked Kenya’s and, by extension Africa’s negotiators at the ongoing climate conference in Bonn, Germany, not to put much emphasis on financing the Loss and Damage kitty but instead calls for fairness and equity.

“Loss and damage remain an important issue; we hope it will be operationalized in Dubai, but whatever amount that may go to the kitty will not take us anywhere as a global community,” Ali Mohamed, who advises the President on matters climate change told Kenya’s delegation in Bonn, shortly after President William Ruto demanded that COP28 be the last round of global negotiations on climate change.

The Loss and Damage funding is an agreement reached during the 27th round of climate negotiations in Egypt to support vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters that include cyclones, floods, severe droughts, landslides, and heat waves, among others.

During the opening ceremony of the UN Habitat Assembly in Nairobi, Ruto said that it is possible to stop the conversation and the negotiation between North and the South because “climate change is not a North/South problem, it is not about fossil fuel versus green energy problem, it is a problem that we could sort out all of us if we came together,” he said. Ruto is the current Chair of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC).

According to Ruto, it is possible (for African negotiators) to agree on a framework that will bring everybody on board for the continent to go to COP28 with a clear mind on what should be done and how Africa and the global South can work with the global North, not as adversaries, but as partners to resolve the climate crisis and present an opportunity to have a win-win outcome that has no finger pointing.

In Bonn, Mohamed, who is also the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, told Kenya’s negotiators that, as Africans, there is a need to raise voices and call for a new global architecture and a new way of doing things.

He gave an example of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) during the period of COVID-19, where Europe, which has a population of 500 million people, received over 40 percent, while the entire African continent, with a population of 1.2 billion people received a paltry five percent of the total funds.

“This kind of unfairness is what President Ruto wants to take forward and say it is no longer tenable in the new world order,” said Mohamed, who is vying to become the next Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) for the next three years.

The SDR is an interest-bearing international reserve asset that supplements other reserve assets of member countries. Rather than a currency, it is a claim on the freely useable currencies of International Monetary Fund (IMF) members.

He also gave an example of the Berlin Wall, which fell in 1989, and suddenly in just six months, a new financial architecture was formed for Europe.

He pointed out that since the ratification of the Paris Agreement, the world has been meeting every year to talk about the $100 billion which developed countries committed to collectively mobilize per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, but the funds have remained a mirage.

“What Africa is pushing for is investment through available, accessible, and adequate financing at affordable costs. We borrow at an interest of 15 percent on a currency that is not ours, while other countries in the North borrow at 2 percent,” said Mohamed.

The AGN Chair, Ephraim Mwepya Shitima, declined to comment on Kenya’s new position, saying that it was beyond his powers to do so. “I am not in a position to comment on whatever has been said by a member of the CAHOSCC,” he told IPS in Bonn.

However, during the opening plenary, Shitima called on developed countries to deliver to restore trust in the UNFCCC process. “The Green Climate Fund replenishment is in October, and this is an opportunity for developed countries to show the world that they are willing to do their part to address climate change and support climate action in developing countries,” he told global delegates in Bonn.

He also welcomed the work program on just transition pathways. “We are of the view that it will advance the implementation of climate action and strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change in the context of sustainable development. The Subsidiary conference here should agree on the work program’s elements, scope, and modalities to be adopted at COP28,” he said.

The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) conference, which is going down in Bonn, is the link between the scientific information provided by expert sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the one hand and the policy-oriented needs of the COP on the other hand. The outcome is therefore used to set the agenda for the subsequent COP based on scientific evidence.

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Kenyan Entrepreneur Using Organic Microbes to Unlock Hidden Nutrients in Dairy Feeds — Global Issues

Juma Kiboi displays pre-fermented animal feeds ready to be fed to dairy cows. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS
  • by Isaiah Esipisu (nakuru, kenya)
  • Inter Press Service

NAKURU, Kenya, Mar 22 (IPS) – Using naturally occurring microbes, a Kenyan entrepreneur has developed a molasses-based supplement that pre-ferments animal feeds to unlock all the necessary nutrients that would otherwise find a way out of the animal through cow dung, and dairy farmers have fallen in love with the product.

According to Henry Ambwere, the Nakuru-based entrepreneur who developed the organic supplement, the naturally occurring pro-life bacteria help in predigesting the animal feeds to make it easy for the animal to utilise all the nutrients, thereby increasing the body mass and milk production, but reducing the amount of the dung produced by the animal.

Juma Kiboi, the Dairy Farm Manager for Rawhide Ltd in Nakuru County, says that the use of the microbes has enabled his farm, which holds hundreds of lactating cows, double the milk production without increasing the amount of feeds.

“When Ambwere introduced this product, we were a bit hesitant to take it up because Bio Food Ltd, which is our main customer, is usually very strict when it comes to the quality of the milk,” said Kiboi. “But he offered to try it on 10 animals, and in less than 24 hours, the milk volumes had improved tremendously, and further tests showed that the quality of the milk remained high,” said the manager.

Mercy Nyokabi, who runs an AgroVet shop at Kiganjo Market in Kiambu County, says that the supplement, which retails in Kenya as MolaPlus Livestock Microbes, is one of the most sort-after products, particularly by smallholder farmers. Kiambu is the highest milk-producing county in the country, delivering over one million litres of milk daily to the Kenyan market.

Usually, explained Ambwere, all ruminants ferment the fodder they eat during a rumination process before sending the same to a different chamber of the stomach for digestion. “However, our laboratory examination of the dung has shown that the animals always fail to fully digest some feeds; hence, they end up producing cow dung that is full of energy and proteins and other essential micro-nutrients,” explained the entrepreneur.

“This is wrong because when we purchase animal feeds, we are actually buying energy and proteins to help the animal increase the body mass, and as well produce sufficient milk, and therefore we shouldn’t be disposing of important nutrients through cow dung,” he said.

But when the microbes are applied to the feeds a day before being fed to the animals, they usually kick off the natural fermentation process outside the stomach, thereby unleashing the nutrients that could be hidden, say in overgrown grasses, which the rumen could otherwise not be able to break down.

According to Bockline Omedo Bebe, a Professor of Livestock Production Systems and the acting Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension at Egerton University in Kenya, such microbes, as long as they are safe for animal and human consumption, have the ability to break down a plant enzyme known as lignin, thereby unlocking and making hidden nutrients available to the animals.

In plants, lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. But in animal nutrition, lignin is considered an anti-nutritive component of forages as it cannot be readily fermented by rumen microbes.

“Scientists are also in the process of studying microbes from different wild animals such as buffalos, gazelles among others, to understand how they manage to use very low-quality fibrous feeds but realise outstanding digestion performance,” said Bebe.

According to Abwere, the MolaPlus Livestock Microbes has been tried on very dry maize stovers and overgrown Napier grass, and as a result, it was able to turn the fodder into high-quality feeds for enhanced livestock production.

“At the Rawhide farm, we only use the supplement in the dairy meal. And whenever we use it, we milk 28,000 litres. But if we stop even for a day, the production goes back to the factory setting, which was 14,000 litres before we started using the microbes,” said Kiboi.

At the farm, the dairy meal is inoculated with the microbes and left to ferment within 24 hours before it is fed to the animals.

“During the fermentation period, the microbes multiply in trillions every few hours, and those that expire usually form what we call microbial protein, which can be utilised by the animals without further digestion,” he said.

A recent study by scientists from Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, and Shanxi Agricultural University, Jinzhong in China, found microbial fermented feeds to be an important part of the feed industry, despite the fact that little research has focused on the solid-state fermentation of complete feed.

The study led by Xiaopeng Tang, a Livestock Research Scientist, found that fermented complete feeds had a certain effect on the improvement of growth performance, serum biochemical profile, carcass traits, meat proximate composition, amino acid and fatty acid profile.

During the study, fermented complete feeds also significantly reduced the relative abundances of presumably pathogenic bacteria of phylum Proteobacteria and genus Escherichia-Shigella and enhanced the relative abundances of likely beneficial bacteria of phylum Firmicutes and genus Clostridium.

In the same vein, according to Kiboi, Rawhide Company subjected the feeds inoculated with the microbes to a laboratory test for aflatoxins in comparison with dry feeds, and the result showed that such feeds had more suppressed aflatoxin levels as compared to dry feeds from the same stock of feeds.

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