Abuja, March 13, 2024 – Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), says Nigeria has the potential to boost agriculture exports and create jobs through agriculture.
She said this on Tuesday during the inauguration of the $1.2 million programme for improving the standard of Nigeria’s sesame and cowpea exports.
She said that in spite of its potential, Nigeria had lost out in agricultural export markets and become a net importer of food due to its failure to tap available opportunities.
Okonjo-Iweala, who was a former Minister of Finance in Nigeria, said many of these opportunities still remained untapped today due to existing obstacles.
“We all know the story about Nigeria being a significant exporter of palm kernel, groundnuts, palm oil, cotton and cocoa, but the country has since become a net importer of many of these goods.”
“In fact, Nigeria has not only lost out in agricultural export markets, it is a net food importer spending about billions a year for goods, many of which we can also produce here.”
“Nigeria used to be a formidable agricultural exporter. Up to the mid-1960s, the country’s share of world agricultural exports was more than one per cent.”
“However, agricultural exports collapsed as the economy shifted towards petroleum exploitation, and by the mid-1980s Nigeria’s world market share for agricultural products has dwindled to less than 0.1 per cent,”
She said Nigeria was still the leading producer and consumer of cowpeas globally and a major producer of sesame, exporting to the Europe, Turkey, U, Japan, South Korea, and other Asian countries.
She, however, said Nigerian exports of cowpeas and sesame had faced increasing rejections in various international markets due to failure to meet the Standard Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) requirements.
Okonjo-Iweala said the goal of the programme was to enhance the understanding of market access requirements among stakeholders in the sesame and cowpea value chains. (GBN)
