Business
Group Proposes New Standard For Agric
The Montpellier Panel has suggested a new standard for African agriculture in which the techniques of sustainable innovations are used by smallholder farmers to address the continent’s food and nutrition crisis.
This is contained in a statement by Mr Mike Shanahan, the Press Officer of the group, made available to newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday.
The Tide source reports that the Montpellier Panel is a group of experts from the fields of agriculture, sustainable development, trade, policy and global development chaired by Prof. Gordon Conway.
Since March 2010, the Panel has worked together to make recommendations to enable better European government support of national and regional agricultural development and food security priorities in sub-Saharan Africa.
The, group, in its report, said that term “Sustainable Intensification” has come to take on a highly charged and politicised meaning, becoming synonymous with big, industrial agriculture.
It added that as the world strived to sustainably feed a population expected to reach nine billion by 2050, the risk was that it could lose sight of the term’s scientific value and its potential relevance to all types of agricultural systems.
It quoted a member of the group, Dr Camilla Toulmin, as saying that that the world needed to boost the harvest of food and fibre from any given area.
“But rather than doing this in conventional unsustainable ways, which mean more pollution, less biodiversity and more climate change, we can choose to intensify farming in a sustainable way with fewer adverse impacts.
“This means scientists and local farmers working together, building on tradition and applying solutions at a local scale.
“Many of these solutions involve better use of soils, water and ecological systems, as well as diverse crop mixes.
“They also need secure land rights, and support from policymakers and the development community to help them to spread.”
The report examined the process and elements of intensification and considered how to ensure sustenability.
It cited some examples of sustainable intensification as microdosing of fertilisers in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso and using the cap of a soda bottle to measure precise amounts of nutrients for each seed hole.
Other examples are the planting of leguminous tree which sheds its leaves in the wet season and provides a natural nutrient source to crops planted underneath for sunlight to pass through.
It also cited the conservation farming in Zambia and the New Rice for Africa (NERICA), a cross-fertilisation between Asian and African rice species.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
