Global Chamber® Lagos Globinar on Agriculture Market Opportunities in Nigeria

Last week we held the globinar "Nigeria Agriculture Market Trade Opportunities" with special keynote speaker Babatunde Emmanuel Olarewaju. Babatunde covered an extraordinary range of food and beverage topics for the country of Nigeria, including exporting opportunities.

Listen to the conversation HERE.

I'm Adesola-Debbie DARAMOLA - Executive Director of Global Chamber® Lagos.

We were pleased to present another special program on HOT markets in Africa, and here we discussed agricultural opportunities in Nigeria. It's important to navigate the global and regional business world safely and effectively, and we connect you with trusted and active business leaders everywhere, along with the information to succeed.

The program started with opening remarks from me and then from Babatunde. It was interesting to hear about his story of why he became involved in farming, and it involves worms and bees!

Unfortunately the oil boom of the 1970's depressed the agriculture market, but now that has reversed.

Agriculture amounts to 36% of employment in Nigeria, and 80% of farmers have less than 10 hectares.

Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava. It like other crops are plagued by too little irrigation and fertilizer usage.

Yield for cassava is significantly depressed because on average, fertilizer usage is 10 times TOO LITTLE, only 20kg per hectare versus the recommended 200kg. And so yields could be improved dramatically through more fertilizer usage.

Other challenges in Nigeria include too little storage space, low utilization of the latest agricultural technologies, and slow adoption of certification for export. These all are reasons that only 2% of agricultural products are exported.

Financing is required to solve all of these issues, and we're already planning a next program on that, targeting July or August.

Contact us for more information ... Global Chamber® Lagos

Keynote speaker: Olarewaju, Babatunde Emmanuel

Speaker Bios

Babatunde is an agricultural extension expert with over 10 years’ experience focusing on Agricultural Development and Food safety. He holds a B. Agric and Masters of Philosophy (M.Phil) Degrees in Agricultural Extension and Rural Sociology from Obafemi Awolowo University, and a certificate in Agriculture Management Programme (AgMP) from Lagos Business School. He is the Lead Strategist of FutuX Agri-consult Limited, a private agricultural extension service, a major implementer of farm certifications such as Global G.A.P., Organic Certification, Union of ethical biotrade (UEBT) Rainforest Alliance certification/UTZ, Fairtrade, Halal amongst others where they provide support to smallholder farmers and aggregators to achieve certifications.

Babatunde has worked on several projects for different national and international organizations in different capacities such as National Value Chain Consultant at FAO where he coordinated the value chain analysis (VCA) research, action and investment plan development for the Lagos State coconut value chain, Environmental Compliance Training Consultant and Good Agronomic Practices (GAP) Training Consultant with CNFA (USAID Funded project), Project Assistant for Aquabounty Consult Ltd, a World Bank Assisted Project, NEWMAP Katsina); Financial Inclusion Consultant in Ogun state for a value chain development programme under IFAD; Third-Party Advisor at SADC Research Centre, Lagos. Affirming his enthusiasm for agricultural development despite the insecurity in Nigeria, he worked as a consultant with McAkins Consult Ltd on a project in one of the Northern red zone areas of Borno State; a project funded by the EU and AFD.

Several other positions he handled included Agronomist Consultant at M.E. Solutions (AgriTech), Research Assistant at International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Welcome2Africa International (W2A), Technical Consultant at Stream Insight, Independent Consultant at CeresNexus LLC, Research and Development Specialist at AgroNigeria and a Research Coordinator at Harambe Nigeria. He was a licensed Global G.A.P farm assurer, Quality Management System (QMS), and GlobalG.A. P Risk Assessment on Social Practice (GRASP) until December 2021. Currently, he is a PECB ISO 22000 Lead Auditor.

Host: Adesola-Debbie DARAMOLA - Executive Director of Global Chamber® Lagos. Adesola-Debbie is Executive Director of Global Chamber® Lagos. In addition she is a Project Assistant (Operations) with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a UN agency for Migration. She is also Executive Creator of ADESEWACONCEPT where she helps corporate individuals, c-suite leaders and top blue chip organizations create a compelling look and feel (brand and image ) that communicates an exceptional value proposition to their target market.

Adesola-Debbie DARAMOLA is a graduate of Yaba College of Technology in Accounting, Post Graduate Diploma, in Strategic Management from Metropolitan school of Business UK, Masters of Business Administration in Management Information System from UNICAF and member of CIM UK. She is multi-talented, industrious, intelligent, hand working and meticulous lady, with work experience spanning 17 years in the Financial Industry (Banking & Insurance), and 5 years in the humanitarian sector.