By Chinyere Anyanwu, [email protected]
The US government values and supports initiatives that promote food safety, food security and agricultural development in Nigeria.
The United States Soybean Export Council (USSEC) met with Nigerian soybean stakeholders, agribusiness experts, importers and executives of local soybean processing and milling companies to discuss agribusiness strategies aimed at improving Nigeria’s soybean value chain which is an important element of food security in Nigeria.
The reception hosted in Lagos provided an opportunity for US agribusiness experts and their Nigerian counterparts to explore possible areas of collaboration in training and capacity-building programmes to meet increased protein demand.
Gerald Smith, Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at the US Mission to Nigeria, noted that Nigeria and the United States enjoy a long-standing relationship in the agricultural sector.
Smith explained that the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Mission is committed to enhancing collaboration to enable Nigeria’s agribusiness industry to meet the country’s vision for nutrition and food safety.
He added that the Nigeria Soy Excellence Centre supports Nigeria’s soybean value chain by enhancing the capacity of Nigerian enterprises in the soy-protein value chain.
“Our partnership to improve Nigeria’s soybean value chain is mutual and a win-win for the US and Nigeria, especially as regards increase in production and ensuring that quality products are produced to meet demand,” Smith said.
USSEC Chairman, Doug Winter, in his remarks, reiterated the council’s commitment to supporting local efforts to increase Nigerians’ access to healthy and nutritional food.
Dr. Ayo Oduntan, Founder and Director, Amo Byng Nigeria Limited, a poultry feeds and concentrate-producing company, commended USSEC’s partnership with local agribusiness experts and its commitment to supporting sustainable solutions to achieving food security in Nigeria.
“This meeting reinforces the fact that we need each other to grow. Through our partnership, we can build a Nigeria where we can enable nutrition and food security for families and communities in Nigeria,” Oduntan said.
USSEC is a non-profit US trade group representing US soybean producers, processors, commodity shippers, merchandisers, allied agribusinesses and agricultural organisations.
The group’s main goal is building preference, improving the value and enabling market access for the use of US soy for human consumption, aquaculture, and livestock feed in 82 countries across the world.
