STANDING ankle-deep in water between neatly spaced rice plants, an instructor shows a group of about 100 farmers in Kebbi, a state in north-west Nigeria, how to apply herbicide. The training session, arranged by TGI Group, a Nigerian conglomerate that runs a large rice mill nearby, has an enthusiastic audience. Hussein Ahmed, a farmer, says the yield from his small field has increased by about 50% since he started using chemicals and carefully spacing the seedlings. Another farmer boasts of marrying a second wife thanks to the extra money he is earning from growing rice.
Across the region the grain is cooked with tomatoes and mounds of chili to make jollof, a dish that is almost always eye-wateringly spicy, no matter how mild the cook insists it is. Jollof is not just the cause of many arguments in the region—Ghanians and Nigerians each insist theirs tastes better. Its main ingredients have also become symbols of how Nigeria is trying to diversify an economy that exports crude oil and imports...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2GA6tNa
EmoticonEmoticon