Nwo Report posted: " Posted BY: Teresa | NwoReport CHICAGO - Bond was set at $150,000 Thursday for a Dolton woman accused of stealing over $1.5 million of food - primarily chicken wings - while working as a consultant for a school district in south suburban Cook Coun" Nwo Report
CHICAGO - Bond was set at $150,000 Thursday for a Dolton woman accused of stealing over $1.5 million of food - primarily chicken wings - while working as a consultant for a school district in south suburban Cook County, according to court documents.
Vera Lidell, 66, began working as the Director of Food Services for Harvey School District 152 in July 2020, according to a proffer from her bond hearing.
Between July 2020 and February 2022, prosecutors said Liddell placed hundreds of unauthorized orders for food items, including 11,000 cases of chicken wings, through the school district's main supplier, Gordon Food Service. The orders were placed separately from the district's legitimate orders, prosecutors said.
"The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school. Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up," the proffer said.
Abdulkareem Mojeed posted: "Prior to the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in Nigeria, palm oil was a major agricultural export crop and a top foreign exchange earner for the country in the 1950s and 1960s. Nigeria was the largest producer of palm oil in the world but " Premium Times Nigeria
Okomu Oil plantation agriculture coordinator, Billy Ghansah, speaks on how changes in rainfall patterns and other issues have impacted oil palm production in Nigeria.
onemillionphotographs posted: " Hello! My name is Liz—welcome to my quest of becoming the first woman (that I know of) to collect, edit, and publish one million photographs to document my journey through this vast, beautiful, diverse, and comp" One Million Photographs
Hello! My name is Liz—welcome to my quest of becoming the first woman (that I know of) to collect, edit, and publish one million photographs to document my journey through this vast, beautiful, diverse, and complex world that we live in.
I spent my childhood moving around small towns in the Midwest. After completing high school in Minnesota, I relocated to St. Louis, Missouri to attend college. I spent the second semester of my sophomore year in Haifa, Israel which solidified my love of travel my passion for new cultures. I spent some time on the East Coast after college but didn't have nearly enough time to explore.
After school, I took a job teaching English at a private school in Anyang, South Korea. After two and a half years of living and working in Asia, I decided it was time to come home to the United States and lay down some roots.
In 2010 I had the opportunity to move to Seattle and fell in love with the mountains, the ocean, the food, and the people. My life in the Pacific Northwest has allowed me to pursue my many passions including my rescue dog, Rico and my golden retriever, Ellie, , photography, hiking, scuba diving, pottery, cooking, gummy candy, sugar cookies, coffee, tea, running, art in all forms, and travel. I spent ten wonderful years in Seattle and then relocated to a much smaller town of Camas, Washington--just 20 minutes outside of Portland, Oregon in 2020.
In 2018 I took up throwing pottery. This only fueled my creativity further and I found that my photos got better and better the more time that I spent on the pottery wheel.
In 2019 I took a job that allowed me to travel extensively around the West Coast. I had the opportunity to fall in love with and photograph cities of the Western United States.
It is my hope that this project encourages at least one person to live life to the fullest and to see the beauty in both the big and small things that this world as to offer.
Farmers Review Africa posted: " A Cambridge University-led project to develop self-fertilizing crops for African farmers has become the latest grantee of Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One). The US$35 million (£28 million) grant will support the E" FurtherAfrica
A Cambridge University-led project to develop self-fertilizing crops for African farmers has become the latest grantee of Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One).
The US$35 million (£28 million) grant will support the Engineering Nitrogen Symbiosis for Africa (ENSA) research programme over the next five years. The research consortium focuses on improving nutrient uptake by food plants to reduce the need for fertilizer across some of the world's most degraded land.
ENSA scientists are breeding plants to maximize the naturally occurring processes in which fungi and bacteria help crops to convert more nutrients from the soil.
"The pioneering work of ENSA is fundamental to levelling the playing field for smallholder farmers in Africa, leveraging the latest crop technology to ensure all communities have the chance to thrive," said Joe Cornelius, CEO of Gates Ag One. "Breakthrough advances in crop science and innovation mean intractable challenges like nutrient uptake and soil health need not hold back agricultural development. We're delighted that Gates Ag One can support ENSA to continue its work to meet the needs of smallholder farmers."
As much as 65% of productive land in Africa is considered degraded, according to the UN, which means crop yields are only around a third of the global average. Fertilizer is often a costly and inaccessible resource for many smallholder farmers in Africa, which accounts for just 4% of global fertilizer consumption and relies heavily on exports from Russia, while the ongoing war in Ukraine has driven up prices by up to 150%. Developing crops with greater ability to take in nutrients through natural processes would therefore automatically increase yields without the need for fertilizer.
ENSA is the latest research project to receive funding from Gates Ag One, which recently announced a grant for the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) project, of which Cambridge University is a collaborator. A not-for-profit subsidiary of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates Ag One was created to leverage global crop science to meet the needs of smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia. It focuses on accelerating research that enhances the biological processes of six priority food crops: cassava, cowpea, maize, rice, sorghum, and soybean.
ENSA's work optimizes the interactions between crops and microorganisms to make better use of nutrients already present in the air and the soil, including nitrogen and phosphorus. At present, only legumes like beans and peas can naturally convert nitrogen from the soil through bacteria known as rhizobia. Replicating this ability in other crops, such as cereals, would sustainably increase yields of critical staple foods.
"African agriculture is at an inflection point, with vastly increasing demand at a time when supply is at risk, especially due to a changing climate," said Giles Oldroyd, Director of the Crop Science Centre and Russell R Geiger Professor of Crop Science. "The outcomes of this work have the potential to see gains as great as those from the Green Revolution, but without relying on costly and polluting inorganic fertilizers. Increasing production of crops sustainably in smallholder farming systems, like those in sub-Saharan Africa, directly addresses some of the worst poverty on the planet."
ENSA is a Cambridge-led international collaboration with partners: University of Oxford, UK; NIAB, UK; Royal Holloway University of London, UK; Aarhus University, Denmark; Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands; University of Freiburg, Germany; University of Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, France; University of Illinois, USA; Pennsylvania State University, USA.
