Experts: Nigeria Should Invest In Agricultural Export

Mrs Bridget Okonoha, an expert has encouraged Nigeria to invest more on exportation to boost the economy of the Nation. Nigeria with its huge potentials in agriculture and being the largest market in Africa, has the wherewithal to be self-sufficient in farm produce.
Mrs Okonoha, who is the Managing Director of Lead Unique Ventures Limited, urged the federal government, agric-sector stakeholders and cooperative societies to invest in organic produce export.
She spoke at an organic agricultural produce export forum in Lagos.
She said that the huge agricultural potentials will boost the present administration’s diversification policy.
Saying Nigeria has enough to feed the world through the agricultural sector, she said: “We should no longer be importing food items when we have enough land to cultivate and grow food and cash crops. Our perishable farm produce should not be lost to poor handling when we have investors who can establish storage facilities. Our farmers should not go broke again when we have market where our farm produce can be sold with immense profit.
“This programme is designed to set up collation of farmers that will farm certain organic produce for market in the United States. The whole world is doing export but Nigeria is not doing much in terms of export. Our aim is a big movement where we can begin to move agricultural products from Nigeria to the United States under a unified name of Ashanti Produce International, so that we can begin to clear the name of Nigeria in terms of agriculture and beat every other country.
“What we need is to get framers and investors to be part of the movement so that we can all benefit from it.”
The facilitator of the forum, Chief Executive Officer, Ashanti Produce International, Michael Griffin, said there is huge market in the production of organic farm produce which Nigeria must maximize for export.
Immediate past Vice Chairman of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Prince Wale Oyekoya, said organic produce is just about doing things naturally.
He said that about 50 percent of the produce we eat in Nigeria is organic but, the aim is to have up to about 75 to 80 percent.