The Nigeria Expanded Trade and Transport (NEXTT) project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Nigeria on Monday in Abuja launch eight model business/industry studies for processing, export across eight commodities value chains in Nigeria.
The commodities are cassava, ginger, kenaf, moringa, sesame, shea, soya milk and yam flour, which form a great deal of staple food consumed in Nigeria with potential for export market.
Mr Amos Samson, who made presentation on the business model of the commodities, noted that the processing of these commodities has remained at the primary and crude level. He said this is limiting the massive inherent gains available across the entire value chain if well managed.
“The industry studies which were carried out by leading Nigerian Business Development Service Providers (BDSPs) was conducted to resolve financing barrier that prevents potential investments in value addition for these commodities which will result in creating thousands of jobs as well as increasing productivity and income of small holder farmers across Nigeria.
“The industry studies were fully funded by the Project Development Facility (PDF) managed by NEXTT to also provide seed funding for early-stage project development and unlocks significant amounts of private investment and financing for value chain development,” NEXTT said in a statement prior to the launch.
The manuals are expected to catalyze private investments required to drive these value chains thereby improving the competitiveness of Nigerian agro-industries in both domestic and international markets.
Marc Shiman, NEXTT Chief of Party, said, “There are remarkable unexploited opportunities in many of Nigeria’s agricultural value chains for entrepreneurs to take advantage of, and the more these opportunities are exploited, the more jobs will be created, foreign exchanged earned, industries modernized, and competitiveness increased. By providing these turn-key solutions, NEXTT is hoping to accelerate investment in these value chains by Nigerian entrepreneurs.”
