The Bank of Agriculture (BoA) on Wednesday said that Nigeria saved about $800 million on rice importation as the various initiatives of the governments and private investors to boost local production of the commodity continue to gain traction.
BoA’s Executive Director, Finance and Risk Management, Prince Niyi Akenzua, made the disclosure at a media briefing in Lagos ahead of the “Meet the Farmers Conference” (MTFC) 2018 scheduled for October 10 this year.
The conference, which is organised by Crenov8 Consulting, is aimed at educating farmers in Africa on the opportunities in agro-export to Asian and Middle-East countries, especially Dubai.
The banker commended the Federal Government on its economic diversification drive which focuses mainly on agricultural and solid minerals sectors and urged Nigerians to key into the programmes in view of the multi-dimensional benefits to the country.
Akenzua pointed out that with the various successes being recorded by the government in the agric sector, the restructuring of the BoA in 2016 to enable it render critical assistance to the agricultural sector was well justified.
He explained: “The Central Bank of Nigeria facilitated a N250 billion intervention fund for the BoA which is being disbursed through the Anchor Borrower’s Programme.
“In 2017, we disbursed about N100 billion to farmers and we have also disbursed about N50 billion so far in 2018,” Akenzua added
The banker noted that with rice production increasing to a level that people could never have imagined, government is targeting early next year to stop the importation of the commodity into the country..
To this end, Akenzua said that what was being done now by government and other investors is to standardize locally produced rice as well as the packaging of agricultural produce to make them exportable to the international market.
The representative of Crenov8 Consulting , Mrs Bola Oyedele, in her remarks explained that Dubai imported over $100 billion worth of food from Africa in 2017, projecting that the export value ise expected to rise to about $400 billion in the next eight years.
The agricultural crops export expert therefore urged Nigeria and other African countries to explore the abundant opportunities availed by these produce namely cocoa, rice, palm oil, wheat, gum Arabic and maize among others export cropsto Dubai particularly and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Oyedele said that participants at the conference would be exposed to a wide range of topics such as agro commodity trading in Dubai and GCC, import and exports requirements, laws and policies, financing, shipping and insurance, among others.
