Silvex International, a leading commodity trading firm in Nigeria, has revealed that Nigeria is ranked the third-largest exporter of sesame around the globe with a trading capacity of over 130 billion naira in 2019.
The Chief Operating Officer of the Company, Alhaji Abubakar Garba Ibrahim, made this known while presenting a paper at the monthly industry lecture series organised by the Bayero University Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) in Kano.
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In the paper titled: “Effective Commodity Aggregation: Bridging the Gap in Nigeria Agricultural Value Chain”, Abubakar confirmed that despite challenges ranging from fragmented internal markets, poor linkages, unconnected trader or processor relation and unchecked middlemen, Nigeria strived to maintain its status among the top ten exporters of sesame.
He explained that to bridge the existing gaps and mitigate the challenges, a systematic out-grower, in-grower, aggregation and commodity logistics needed to be developed for sustainability and economic prosperity of the country through the Agro-industrial sector.
“This is why we invested over N350, 000, 000 in various out-grower schemes for rice and groundnut in Jigawa State because as commodity traders, we need to strengthen the support base of smallholder farmers to increase productivity, ” he said.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Director of the Centre, Prof. Jibrin Muhammad, reiterated the university’s effort to connect the industry players with the academic institution of learning for students and researchers to grasp the real-time information of the industry.