“Tomorrow, we shall flag off this
export in three container loads containing 72 tonnes of Nigerian yams. Two
containers went out in February; one arrived in New York on the 16th of this
month. This is important because for those of you who travel and many Nigerians
out there, you go to shops where they sell African foods and you never see
anything from Nigeria. It is mostly called Ghana yams.
“Now, we account for 61% of the
total output of yams in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture
Organisation. The rest is shared between some countries in West Africa and the
West Indies. For us to go abroad and not find Nigerian yams in the market is an
embarrassment”.
In a major diversification
breakthrough, the minister Of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, announced yesterday that
the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the exportation of yams to the
United States and United Kingdom.
Efforts by the federal government to
diversify the economy is beginning to yield results, as the federal government
is set to export 72 metric tonnes of yam to Europe and the United States today.
Ogbeh disclosed this to State House
correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting presided over by Acting President
Yemi Osinbajo at the presidential villa, Abuja.
The minister was joined at the FEC
briefing by his science and technology as well as Health counterparts, Ogbonaya
Onu and Isaac Adewole respectively, and Special adviser to the president on
media and publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina.
Ogbeh noted that his ministry informed council
that last week, they completed arrangements for the first formal export of
Nigerian yams to the United Kingdom.
He also observed that Nigerians don’t even
consume all the yams they produce because most of it is lost to wastage
due to poor technologies in preservation and that if Ghana is
targeting $4 billion from yams in the next three years and can do that,
Nigerians who are the masters of yam production have no business lagging
behind.
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