HOW TO GROW SWEET POTATO.

Sweet potato is a great crop to grow in warm to hot areas, where it can often be difficult to grow traditional potatoes. It’s a very hardy crop and one of the easiest to grow, and it provides excellent returns of big golden or purple tubers. You can also eat the leaf tips and young leaves as spinach.

Climate

• Sweet potato likes warm to hot conditions
• Grows best in tropical and subtropical areas where it can be planted year round
• Will produce good crops in temperate areas, but will need at least 4-6 months of warm frost-free conditions to produce a good crop, so plant early spring

Position

• Best crops are produced in open sunny positions with full-day sun, but you can also get a reasonable return in half-day sun and semi-shaded positions

Soil

• Sweet potato needs a deep, loose friable and well-drained soil to allow tubers to develop and avoid rotting in times of heavy rainfall
• Dig over the soil to at least a spade’s depth and incorporate a minimum of 2 bucketloads of compost or well-rotted manure per square metre. Mound the soil into deep planting ridges 40cm wide, to create greater depth and improved drainage
• In heavy soils and heavy rainfall areas, build an even greater depth of soil by mounding rows of garden waste and soil on the soil surface

Planting

• Sweet potato is a perennial vine that covers the ground
• The plants are propagated using cuttings
• Start by planting a healthy sweet potato in the ground or in a pot filled with potting mix when the weather is warm
• Keep it watered and it will start producing shoots which can be used as cutting material
• Take cuttings 15-20cm long, remove all leaves except two at the top, and plant them directly into the soil with the top leaves just above the soil surface
• Keep the soil moist and they will start forming roots within a week. New tubers will form from these roots. The tops will produce lots of green shoots which can also be used as cuttings
• Continue to plant more cuttings as material becomes available

Watering, fertilising and maintenance

• Keep plants evenly moist, but not too wet. Water deeply during dry periods
• Sweet potato needs a good supply of potassium and phosphorous for tuber production. The simplest way to supply this is with compost and an application of a well-balanced organic fertiliser once every 8 weeks during the growing period
• This is a vigorous and often rampant plant during the peak growing time. Trim growth as it escapes using pruning shears or a sharp spade. The prunings can be used as cuttings for new plants or added to the compost heap
• The vines will form roots and potential tubers wherever the nodes (leaf joints) make contact with the ground. This can be further encouraged where appropriate by building soil and compost up around trailing vines

Harvesting and storage

• Tubers are ready for harvest in 4 months from planting in tropical areas and 6 months in cooler zones
• To harvest, pull back vines to reveal their base and then use a garden fork to loosen the surrounding soil and expose the tubers. There can be several tubers ready at each planting spot
• In warm areas, plants can be left in the ground for several years
• In cooler areas, harvest crop before winter
• Large tubers store best. Wash and air-dry for a few days and store in the fridge

Pests and disease

Sweet potato is a very hardy crop that is generally free from pest and disease problems

 n the kitchen

Sweet potatoes are delicious baked, boiled, steamed or fried. Add it to curries and casseroles 10 minutes before serving, or use it as a substitute for pumpkin in cakes and pies. Exposed flesh discolours quickly – to avoid this, add it to water soon after peeling and chopping. The young leaves and shoots are also edible and can be used in salads, either steamed or stir-fried.

Varieties

There are two main varieties of sweet potato readily available in Australia. The orange-flesh variety is most common and is sweet and moist. The purple-skinned variety with white flesh has a richer flavor

but slightly dryer texture.

NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

HOW TO GROW RICE

Rice is a cash crop that feeds millions of people around the world, but you can also grow it ornamentally.

Ornamental rice can be found at specialty garden centers and mail-order nurseries. Check the tag or ask a garden center representative to see if the variety is invasive. If it is, plant it in a lined pond only.

If your pond's not lined, mesh containers should help to keep plants in check. These containers allow fresh water in and out but will keep the roots at bay. Use soil-less media designed for ponds since it won't color, cloud, float away or change the pH of the water.

Growing rice from seed isn't as hard as you may think:

• Soak the seeds in water for about 36 hours and allow to dry for another 24 hours.
• Fill a bucket with 6 inches of a mixture of soil and compost.
• Add about 5 inches of water to cover the soil.
• Evenly spread the seeds in the bucket and place in a warm, sunny area.
• Periodically add more water to maintain a constant 5-inch depth as the plants grow.

Depending on the type of rice and your climate, it can take up to 160 days before you can harvest any grain. But don't expect a harvest big enough for a good meal. If you want rice by the pound, that's better left to the professionals. NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

•  

WORLDWIDE INNOVATION: TOUCHSTONE SNAIL BREAKS GROUND WITH THE CURTAIN METHOD.

After the long working experience, the research and development department of Touchstone has founded the innovative breeding method, the so-called “Curtain Method”. The Curtain Method has radically transformed and upgraded the snail breeding technique worldwide. This method can produce 5 times more production that any other existing methods.

In a snail breeding unit of 1000m2 that uses the Curtain method the breeder by faithfully implementing Touchstone`s know-how can have a production about 26.000Kg.

If you sign a contract with Touchstone Snails, we provide you with advanced expertise; how to make a snail farm and how to properly manage your farm.What’s more, we offer you a purchase agreement under which we purchase your entire snail production at the best snail market price per kilo.

Touchstone Snails partakes in the intra-Community trade. We’re the first and only company to export snails to Europe, that have been obtained from snail-farming businesses that Touchstone Snails provides.

The Company offers Franchise for sale to all those searching for innovative business franchise ideas, alternative revenue and smart investment. You can be one of those who will create their own profitable business through the franchise by taking advantage of the know-how and professionalism of Touchstone Snail Technologies Limited. The global snails market is in need of snails. Are you ready to take action?Touchstone Snail Technologies Limited has franchise opportunities available for countries across the world. This could be an opportunity for you too!

We provide full support and training on all the services we offer.

We train our breeders in order to enable them to correctly manage their snail breeding units, on a daily basis during all the stages of the annual breeding cycle. From the beginning of our cooperation, we support from A-Z our clients and we train them in our own snail breeding units, with a total surface area of 5000m2, located in Troulloi Village, in Larnaca, Cyprus.

The company also offers training to individuals and organized groups that want to find more about the snail breeding and to gain personal working experience in snail farming.

Touchstone Snail Technologies is currently offering international investment opportunity in the snail farming industry under its full supervision and management, the “Guaranteed International Snail Farming Investment” that will ensure a high profitable guaranteed income for both, the investor and company.

The product consists of a custom made snail farm located in Cyprus on a 1,000 m2. The farm will be fully managed and covered by Touchstone Snail Technologies for the entire contract period and the entire production will be under the company’s supervision and responsibility. TOUCH STONE SNAILS.

EFFECTIVE BIO SECURITY KEY TO FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA.

Poor capacity in bio security remains a major obstacle to agricultural trade in Africa and limits farmers’ incomes and food security, a meeting has heard.
 
The 4th Africa Plant Biosecurity Network workshop held in Zambia on 27 February-3 March noted that effective biosecurity system could boost regional and international trade in agricultural products in Africa.
 
Bio security refers to procedures or measures that protect the population against harmful biological or biochemical substances.

The network meetings are a key component of the Australia-Africa Plant Bio security Partnership (AAPBP) that aims to improve national and regional quarantine and plant protection capacity, thereby enabling safe regional trade, expanding international market access opportunities and securing greater regional food security.
 
“Intra-regional agricultural trade can also reduce food insecurity, so we must address constraints to this trade such as biosecurity. Those army worms do not need visas to cross borders,” notes Sindiso Ngwenya, secretary-general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).  “As COMESA, we are trying to open borders for free movement.”
 
Mellissa Wood, general manager of global program at the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, the agency funding the AAPBP, explains that an effective biosecurity system could boost regional and international trade in agricultural produce from Sub-Saharan Africa.”
 
There is a need to protect agricultural trade by enhancing international collaboration in fighting plant pests, adds Jean Kapata, Zambia’s acting minister of agriculture.
 
Moses Mwale, director of Zambia Agriculture Research Institute, says ten per cent or 1.2 million or ten per cent hectares in Zambia are under infestation of the army worm.
 
“We need an integrated pest management system and to invest in an early warning system,” Mwale notes.
 
George Zulu, Zambia’s high commissioner to Australia, tells SciDev.Net tackling crop diseases could help peasant farmers export crops such as sweet bananas.
Dennis Rangi, director-general of the UK-based Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International, is calling for a sustainable solution to pests such as the army worm.
 
 “These challenges show the need to build capacity for response. We have been reactive. That is the problem,” Rangi says.
 
According to Jo Luck, director of research, education and training at Australia’s Plant Biosecurity Co-operative Research Centre, her organisation is keen to build capacity of the ten participating countries —Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe — to respond to biosecurity threats through a coordinated training of the next generation of plant biosecurity scientists. BY VANGUARD.

NIGERIA NEEDS LESS IMPORT, QUICK MOVE TO AGRICULTURE.

Nigeria’s renowned professor of credit management, Chris Onalo is the Registrar/CEO of the Institute of Credit Administration (ICA), Nigeria’s only national body for credit management. He has created a niche in the Nigerian economy through his sustained advocacy for a credit driven economy. In this interview with Moses Nosike, he commended the economic foundation the Buhari administration is laying and the pains Nigerians need to endure to deliver desired results. Excerpts:

Recession and state of the nation… Economic recession in Nigeria today is the fallout of so many things that had happened in the past. Specifically I’m referring to various macro credit policy deficiencies on the part of past governments; lack of savings and much dependency on a single product – Oil.

 Also, failure of past governments to hold people accountable to industrialisation. In other words, the government policies over the years have not encouraged entrepreneurs as well as foreign investors to move into agriculture and undertake businesses that trigger multi-purpose raw materials advantage that can be used for different production of things at different times. That is what brought us to where we are today.

Again, I have maintained a sustained voice over the years that Nigeria was not properly founded on solid economic and political pillars that can sustain liberal democracy. The consequences of it is before us today. And that underlines my strongest position that anybody who is criticising the present government is not getting it right, and I consider such person or group of persons enemy of Nigeria for lacking in objective, constructive and fact based criticism.

Nigeria is a massive country and one of the highly populated countries of the world. Nigeria has good brains, well educated but not so learned people. We saw images of bad omen coming but because of selfish interest we turned our faces to go the other way and we all looked the other way. You can’t blame Buhari administration neither would you expect them to fix up things within six months, it’s not possible. To our own face, we have seen few individuals who smartly looted, defrauded all of us, brought down our common wealth and the recovery of some billions and trillions of Naira today is a pointer to this allusion. Where were all of us when these few people were looting our treasury? We rather celebrated them, we gave them national honours, and we honoured them with honorary doctorates, all kinds of awards. We have the culture of celebrating mediocrity. The same Nigerians are very quick now to expect Buhari government to fix the economy immediately. It is not possible. Most Nigerians hate truth. They prefer someone who would tell them lies. We should know that incalculable damage has been done to our economy, to our democracy and social values. We got it wrong for too long a time. 

We can’t fix it over night, but with sustained efforts and good governance, focusing on human capital build up and courageous purging of our long entrenched materialistic greed and self-centeredness, this nation can emerge stronger. Recovering of looted wealth and present administration… This is what I’m saying. What kind of system are we running that allow individuals to enmesh such wealth and even keeping cash in their houses, dug a tank farm and hid the country’s money there. This tells you that something is fundamentally wrong with our set up and the earlier we realized it in order to address it for the better for us all. This may take us some long time to achieve; it is not a thing of first four years. It would not even be second year term, not even third. We need consistence, and I think Buhari administration is really pragmatically trying to lay that foundation for a radical reform in terms of economic strength of the nation, reculturizing Nigerians to know their priorities through obedience to the rule of law, and human capital capacity building which is the greatest asset of any nation.


My message to such transformer and his cohorts is that he or she must lead by example. Let nobody live a life of affluent that send wrong signals to our young generations, even if some of them may have made their money before coming into government; let them put up the tune of emotion and feelings for Nigeria. What Buhari administration is doing now is foundation laying, and I can understand that some people who don’t really appreciate what leadership entails, are still thinking that being in government means go and bring us money. This point of view of mine is totally an honest expression. I do not belong to any camp of Buhari government nor any political party. I felt as an educated and learned professor of credit management, I should be fair, objective and down to earth sincere and truthful in assessing the state of things in my country –Nigeria.

Therefore, my advice to Buhari government in this foundation laying is for him to ensure that Nigerians are sufficiently carried along. In doing this, there also should be some measure of palliatives in place to take care of the highly vulnerable general populace who are affected by that huge step of change that the government is taking. But government should not relent in the recovering of the nation’s looted wealth. At the beginning of Buhari administration I did say that Buhari should concentrate more on recovering of looted funds, and I’m still saying the money that few heartless Nigerians had taken away from us if we can recover at least 70% of it, we will not be thinking whether oil price has crashed to some length or borrowing from other windows.

Border closure and high cost of commodities… Again, shall we continue to live at the mercy of other nations. Now what is the priority of Nigeria? As a nation, we have got unacceptable history of misplaced priority. From my years of running business and interfacing with global community, Nigerians have calved out a name for themselves, “big buyers”. Why should we solely depend on what other people produced; yet we are in a position to produce the same thing? We have all it takes, natural endowments to produce the same thing we are spending all our money to buy from foreigners. And we call ourselves a country with massive number of people. I disagree with those who condemn border closure. The question is, crying against border closure, who are we protecting? Those who can afford to buy cars are fewer in number compared to large number of Nigerians that are not talking of cars but what to eat and where to lay their heads. We have a problem with the so called elite and the media should be very careful so that we don’t continually run down every good intention of the government. What is passing through the border – is it beans, garri, pepper etc. but cars, for who, What class of people? If we can’t produce a critical components and tie them together to give us cars, at least we should be able to assemble cars or vehicles in Nigeria. We cannot throw our borders open. I’m not the president of this country, but he has done my best wishes. If we must lay solid foundation, Buhari administration or any other future government will still take painful decision that would affect everybody. If you are eating five times a day, you are likely to reduce it to two. But my focus is on the down trodden because they form the majority. Policy must be fairly friendly to them because their level of provocation could amount to destruction.

Federal Government and price monitoring Government is not a spirit, and palliative measures will not come from the blues. If government wants to take steps in reducing the cost of commodities that the masses buy to keep themselves alive, I don’t see what magic the government can perform. You don’t even have enough production on ground to think of the other way that perhaps the producers are unnecessarily hiking the price, in which case, government can meet with them and strike a balance.

Again, it is the function of demand and supply that if production of consumable items entails high cost, government is required to look at those areas to cut down the costs, so that sellers of those commodities will have fairly reasonable space to reduce prices. That is all about democracy; it’s all about coming together to reason, not by administrative fiat. The agriculture roadmap is lucrative, but it has not yet come to full reality, it will eventually. Rice is not yet everywhere, Corn is not yet everywhere, Beans is not yet everywhere. Those things, and much more are products of agriculture. There are no good road network as yet to assist farmers move their produce to urban cities where they can sell them. The little they are able to convey to town becomes very expensive in terms of price. In my opinion, government is doing well, though they need to do more. It also depends on the availability of resources. In all of this, government wants to make money and the same government is called upon to bring down the cost of doing business, it is a very complex situation. We must recognize the tedious pathway that government is moving on to get things right.

Issue of Forex

It is so because our consumption level is denominated in foreign commodities. If 95% of what we consume comes from foreign market, we should be ready to face the problem of foreign exchange mismatch. The little thing we were buying under a fair exchange rate regime is now high and majority now live on those products. Government now has a major task of moving the economy from being foreign dominated to localization, where we have less import and more reserve. I think what Nigeria need now is less import, more local production of goods and services and strong reserve so that we can be a creditworth nation. We don’t need to produce and the next moment we are running abroad to buy the same products. It’s the consequence of what we are now facing. In fact, it’s high time we changed our preference for foreign goods even though it could take 5 to 6 years for us to achieve this. Government policy is designed to discourage import, it certainly will not be palatable.
BY VANGUARD.