Eden Agribusiness Center

“Your uniqueness is the only source of profitability that cannot be competed away, and thus, is the only source of sustainable profits.” –John Ikerd Introduction The quote above by John Ikerd cannot more aptly portray the prospect value addition holds for agricultural growth. Briefly put, value-added agriculture entails changing a raw agricultural product into something new through packaging, processing, cooling, drying, extracting or any other type of process that differentiates the product from the original raw commodity. Examples of value added agricultural products include cassava flour, bagged salad mix, cassava bread, black soaps and sausages. Definition This definition of value-added agriculture is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Business Development. Value-added products are defined as follows: A change in the physical state or form of the product (such as milling wheat into flour or making strawberries into jam). The production of a pro...

bee performing the important function of pollination How would a world without bees look like? You might think that bees are pests when you hear them buzzing around you on a hot day or you may care about them only because of their honey. Well, even if the honey should dry up, farmers still count on these social insects for their money. Actually, bees are a vital species. Now check this out: honeybees are the world's leading pollinators, and are responsible for $30 million of crops every year. According to the BBC, bees pollinate 70 of the nearly 100 species of crops that feed 90% of the world. If bees went extinct, we could lose all plants pollinated by bees, which would affect the animals that eat those plants, and the animals that eat those animals, and the ripple effect would be felt worldwide. Simply put. Without bees, we could lose foods like carrots, broccoli, strawberries, and almonds. So, there's so much more to a bee than just its honey!

Seeds Given to 1 Million Farmers Hit By Boko Haram in Northeast Nigeria - UN Seeds and fertiliser are being delivered to more than a million farmers in Boko Haram-hit northeast Nigeria ahead of the rainy season to combat growing hunger and dwindling aid in a region threatened with famine, the United Nations said on Wednesday. The Islamist militants' bloody insurgency has prevented farmers from planting or harvesting crops for years in the northeast, where more than 5 million people need food aid and about 1.5 million are on the brink of famine, aid agencies say Adesina Named 2017 World Food Prize Winner - the 'Nobel' of Agriculture Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, has been named the winner of this year's  World Food Prize .  The prestigious U.S.$250,000 prize is given annually to a person who has worked to advance human development by "improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world". Over a 31...