Nigeria targets 5,760 tonnes yam export in 2018

Nigeria has set a target of about 5,760 tonnes of yams for export in 2018 as part of a programme to boost yam export and increase the country’s foreign exchange earnings through agriculture, the Technical Committee on Nigeria Yam Export Programme has said.


Professor Simon Irtwange, Chairman of the committee, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja said requests for the monthly supply of five containers has already been received from the United States which amounted to 120 tonnes of yams monthly and 1,440 tonnes of yams in a year.

He said, “If everything works out well, the US authorities say they will need about five containers every month and one container contains 24 tonnes of yams. We are trying to aggregate the demand from other countries; so by the time we put everything together, we should be thinking of exporting about 20 containers of yams on a monthly basis.”

Going by this projection, the committee hopes to export a total of 480 tonnes of yams every month which translates to 5,760 for 12 months.

Irtwange said the committee has developed a work plan while working with relevant government agencies to provide the necessary support for the programme. For instance, the Nigerian Ports Authority had made available the Ikorodu Lighter Terminal to facilitate the packaging and movement of yams meant for export, he added.

“The NPA has already given us the Ikorodu Lighter Terminal, where we can bring our yams and do all the packaging before moving them down to the ports. That way, we will avoid the gridlock in Apapa because now, we are using batches to move the yams from Ikorodu to Apapa,’’ he said.

He explained that the committee has forwarded a report to the Federal Government on possible ways of tackling perceptible hitches, especially in transportation.

“Presently, there is only one conditioning centre owned by the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) in Zaki-Ibiam, Benue State, but that is not enough, we need more. On the issues of packaging and production of cartons for the yams, we are also hoping to have local investors.

“Right now, there are only two companies that can do this for us — an Indian company in Ibadan and a Chinese company in Lagos — and the problem is that in most cases, they don’t take orders for little quantities of cartons for production.

“A container will take about 1,200 cartons and when you go to the companies for the production of 1,200 cartons, they will say it is too small.

“We are also thinking that if there are people that can produce the cartons in small quantities, things will be okay. We want to get those who can produce small quantities of cartons for sale to yam exporters,’’ he said.


(NAN)

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