In December 2015, Mrs Sarah Smith, like most women agonised over the high cost of tomatoes in the market which marred her Christmas shopping due to paucity of funds arising from the economic downturn of the country.

The Director-General, National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) , Dr Philip Olusegun Ojo, has disclosed that the council and the Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI) were working to ensure that improved seeds were made available to farmers.

A summit that will provide stakeholders and industry experts opportunities of deliberating on Agricultural and mining sectors in Nigeria is being put together by the International Strategic Alliance Committee (ISAC).

MANY people might not have been to the sleepy town of Ofada in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, but once Ofada is mentioned they link it to the Ofada rice enjoyed by many in Nigeria and beyond. Ofada is a generic name used to describe all rice produced and processed in the rice producing clusters of South-West Nigeria. But all that might be a thing of the past if care is not taken as the people of the town are gradually abandoning rice cultivation due to the challenges of urbanisation, quality planting materials, seed and markets.

Bala Emmanuel and Mary Dauda were just like any other farmers in Rafin Tabo Village near Zaria in Kaduna state as they work hard yearly cultivating maize on their farms but get little in return in terms of yields at harvest time. Why were they not getting high yields? The answer lies in the fact that they were using farming methods passed on to them by their parents, methods which were sometimes at odds with internationally-recognized best practices and many times detrimental to the success of their farms.