Address Food Productivity, Others, Expert Urges

• Address Food Productivity, Others, Expert Urges

Vice President Corporate & Government Relations, Olam Nigeria, Ade Adefeko, has urged farmers and the food industry to address the challenge of agricultural competitiveness and productivity.
Speaking during Akindelano Legal Practitioners’ seminar on Transforming Nigeria’s Agriculture and Agro-Allied Industry in Lagos, Adefeko stressed the need for practical support to farmers on improving quality and cutting costs to improve competitiveness.
He explained that the private sector has an important role to play in promoting sustainable and inclusive economic growth through initiatives that will benefit thousands of farmers, both women and men, across the sector.
According to him, improving rice production will help the agri-sector will help the sector to increase profitability sustainably, and improve farmer livelihoods.
He announced that Olams as a way of supporting the industry has rolled out sustainable agricultural standards and practices throughout its rice-production value chain .
Adefeko said Olam was investing $150 million to set up two state-of-the-art animal feed mills, poultry breeding farms and a hatchery to produce day-old-chicks in Nigeria.
He said the project will be Nigeria’s largest integrated animal feed mill, breeding farm and hatchery. He said $100 million had been committed to building and operating the facilities in Kaduna State while $50 million is for a second investment in an integrated poultry and fish feed mill located in Kwara State.
The other investment is thev ongoing development of a 10,000-hectare rice farm and mill in Nasarawa State.
To support Nigeria’s quest for rice self-sufficiency, he said Olam aims to scale up production to over 40,000mt of paddy rice yearly.