Mr Abiodun Olaniyi,Project Coordinator of the Nigeria International Agriculture Expo(NIAEXPO 2025),has said the 2025 event will boost the nation’s vast agribusiness potential and strengthen its position in the global agricultural market.
Olaniyi said this during a news conference on the 7th NIAE with the theme “Showcasing Nigeria’s Agricultural Potential on a Global State” on Wednesday in Aubja.
He explained that the NIAEXPO 2025 would serve as a global marketplace for innovation, trade, and investment in agriculture, projecting Nigeria as a major hub for agribusiness
in Africa.
He added that by showcasing local innovation, empowering women in agribusiness, and connecting farmers to international markets, NIAEXPO 2025 would strengthen Nigeria’s role in global food
security and sustainable agriculture.
He said it would also bring together farmers, agribusiness investors, policymakers, and international delegates to explore opportunities across the entire agricultural value chain from production to processing, distribution and exports.
According to him, the expo is focused on projecting Nigeria’s agricultural strengths while addressing persistent challenges such as post-harvest losses, poor access to finance, and inefficiencies in logistics and supply chains.
“We do have visitors around the world, for the last edition, we had over 10 countries that came up, from Russia, India, United States, Estonia, China among others.
“We are looking at the areas of the value chain from the small businesses, the post-harvest losses, use of agricultural inputs, down to the area of distribution and the agricultural supply chain.”
Olaniyi said that there is target for 2030 and the programme is tailored towards it to give the nation an edge.
He said that for the 2025 expo, different representative in the geopolitical zones of the country and also from some African countries would be on ground.
He added that the expo would build the capacity of companies and individuals for proper knowledge integration in topics from agro-logistics, digital agriculture, women in agribusiness among others.
He said that the expo would also address issues around livestock market.
“We are going to also look at broccoli, cauliflower, and moringa because these are very excellent crops that people are really not taking advantage of them.
“There will be a forum for organic and agro ecology education, the expo is a balanced forum that the Nigerian agro-stakeholders will really gain from.”
Olaniyi said that the Nigerian agricultural sector held a lot of benefits for the nation especially its crops like cashew, coco, sugar cane, Mushrooms among others.
He called for stronger policies to strengthen the sector and synergy among stakeholders for the nation to harness the potential of the sector.
Also speaking, Mr Adekunle Adamson, Regional Project Lead for the NIAE,said the 2025 edition would highlight farmers day and women entrepreneurs.
Adamson said that a sub-event, called the Farmers’ Day, was created to celebrate farmers to enhance inclusivity.
“We mobilised farmers through all the various farming association and organisations. There are various dedicated schemes and trainings that we have arranged for them to be part of.
“So by the time they go back to their various places, they will be able to apply whatever they have learned from this event to further improve their inputs.
“We also created what we call the Women Entrepreneurship Hub because in this sector, women are very critical, but they are not being spotlighted.
“So in this particular edition, we are making sure that women and youths are being spotlighted, and also the youth by creating this hub for them.
Adamson said the hub would exhibition all the big-time farmers, the manufacturers, the equipment importers, women and entrepreneurs into small-scale farming.
He said that the hub was created to bring together those still trying to get their product registered and those that have registered to be trained on how to package, market and present their goods to the public for it to be acceptable.
He called on all stakeholders to leverage the expo for agricultural progress in the nation.(NAN)