Kenya-Nigeria Agribusiness Forum

Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development,
Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, receiving a gift from the officials
of Kenyan National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI).

11 September 2014. Nairobi, Kenya. Kenya-Nigeria Agribusiness Forum.

The partnership has a set of objectives that include:

1. fixing agricultural value chains, 
2. ensuring sustainable supplies, 
3. affordable financing, 
4. instituting good agricultural practice and certification of programmes with international recognition. 

Nigeria's minister of agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, who spoke at the launch of the Kenya-Nigeria Agribusiness Forum and signing of MoU on the bilateral trade and business relationship, explained that;

"Where you are going to have the greatest impact is to make agriculture a business everywhere in Africa. Whether in seeds, ferriliser, storage, processing or adding value, everything about agriculture is business. "That is why I don't understand how Africa will be spending $35 billion every year importing what it produces. It should be producing a lot more. Africa has no business importing food. Africa should be a dominant player in global food and agricultural market. We have land and water, we have cheap labour. And so, we should be dominant. We shouldn't be spending $35 billion a year importing what we produce. Because if we do that, we export jobs, we decimate our own rural economy, we fast-track the whole process of rural-urban migration and we have congested cities. 

Kenya's Minister of Agriculture, Felix Koskei, stated that the dominance of primary production and
marketing in crude forms are common to Nigeria and Kenya. These translate to low prices, few job opportunities and low income for farmers. Changing these will increase the income to our farmers.

Chairman of Kenya-Nigeria Joint Business Council, Sani Dangote, who was at the launch said Nigeria has woken up to transform agriculture from just primary production, adding that the Nigerian Agribusiness Group is a united front to address the issues of agriculture in Nigeria to make it private sector-driven.