Nnamdi Kanu and Israeli agriculture

[1] I hope you are well and fine Nnamdi. Personally, I am actually very pleased that you are hale and hearty. At least we now know that you did not come to any harm, which is a relief as violence cannot be condoned. We resort to it in Nigeria but that does not make it acceptable

[2] Biko Nnamdi, while you are in Israel, please try and pick up some tips on agriculture. Nigeria (The zoo) and Biafra could do with learning a lot of their agricultural techniques. Israeli agriculture is highly developed as the country is a major exporter of fresh produce and a world-leader in agricultural technologies despite the fact that its geography is not naturally conductive to agriculture

[3] More than half of Israel's land area is desert and the climate and lack of water resources do not favour farming but guess what, they have irrigated the desert. Only 20% of Israel's land area is naturally arable but guess what? the country produces 95% of its food requirements

[4] Do you know that the area of irrigated farmland in Israel has increased from 74,000 acres in 1948 to some 460,000 acres today?

[5] Israeli agricultural production rose 26% between 1999 and 2009, while the number of farmers dropped from 23,500 to 17,000. Farmers have also grown more with less water, using 12% less water to grow 26% more produce

[6] Due to the diversity of the land and climate across the country, Israel is able to grow a wide range of crops. Field crops grown in the country include wheat, sorghum and corn. Fruit and vegetables grown include citrus, avocados, kiwifruit, guavas, mangoes, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini and melons

[7] In 1997, $107m worth of cotton was grown in Israel with most of this sold in advance on the futures market.

[8] Do you know that Israeli cows produce the highest amounts of milk per animal in the world, with an average of 10,208 kilograms (around 10,000 liters) of dairy in 2009. All of Israel's milk comes from dairy farms with most herds consisting largely of Israel-Holsteins, a high-yielding, disease-resistant breed.

[9] At the very least, Nnamdi Kanu should get some of those cows imported to Umuahia. do you know that when Obafemi Awolowo was premier of the Western Region, he imported a special variety of high-yielding cow from Argentina? Is it now unbelievable that with Buhari's background Nigeria still has dairy farming problems?

[10] Israel is also big in acquaculture. Scientists of the Bengis Center for Desert Aquaculture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev discovered that the brackish water under the desert can be used for agriculture, aquaculture and a combination of the two. This has led to the farming of fish, shrimp and crustaceans in the Negev

Anyway, over to you Nnamdi!