Prof. Simon Irtwange, National Chairman, Engineering Personnel and Citizens Civil Rights Development Initiative, says Nigeria will start exporting yam to other countries within the next five months. Modalities were already on the ground to ensure that the Nigerian yam flourished in the global market.
A total of 72 metric tonnes of yam to be exported in three containers will leave the shores of Nigeria for Foreign Countries. The raw food exportation from Nigeria would be done through the Apapa Port in Lagos .
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, disclosed this at the end of a meeting with the technical committee on the Nigerian Yam Export Programme in his office in Abuja on Thursday.
According to a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye, assured the exporters of the government’s support and promised those who led the effort that everything spent would be refunded.
“The committee members were carefully selected, based on the area of their professionalism. The committee has set up programmes to deliver their mandates.
“We have already done a lot of underground work and we are going to leverage on the expertise of all the members of our committee, including the Yam Association of Nigeria,’’ he said.
Earlier, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said that Nigeria remained the highest producer of yam in the world, accounting for 61.7 per cent of the global stock.
He, however, noted that Ghana seemed to control the African export market, even though the country could not produce as much yam as Niger, Ebonyi or any other yam producing state in Nigeria.
