The Institute of Agribusiness Management Nigeria (IAMN) has condemned the $22 billion Nigeria is spending annually on the importation of food that ordinarily could be produced locally by agribusiness entrepreneurs in the country.
Speaking at the induction ceremony and inauguration of Lagos state chapter of the Institute, the President of IAMN, Professor Andie Brisibe who was represented by the Managing Director of Bic Farms Concepts bemoaned the huge of money Nigeria is spending on food importation and enriching other countries.
“How can we spend over $22 billion to import food into Nigeria? Imagine if Nigerian agripreneurs are the one producing this food, the money will spread and everyone will be better for it. By importing food commodities, we are enriching other countries and improving the livelihoods of their farmers at the expense of our own.
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“So IAMN is championing this course in the area of improving technical knowhow of our members in areas of capacity development in areas of commercial crop and livestock production, Agro processing and Agribusiness trade,” Brisbe said.
However, he called for collaboration among the stakeholders in the various agribusiness value chains in developing the sector, saying agribusiness is capable of fully diversifying the nation’s economy and providing jobs for the unemployed Nigerians.
He said one of the challenges facing the agriculture industry is that everybody just comes into the industry claiming to be an agricultural consultant without proper standardization and certification. He said lots of Nigerians are losing investment funds to the quack agricultural consultants.
Said he:”The institute is there to standardize the activities of agribusiness professionals in Nigeria. Nobody should just come and say I’m an agricultural consultant. The question will be who certified you? Who knows what you can do? Who can recommend you? Where are your Certification seals and practice licence? Quality control measures such as these are what IAMN has been putting in place to sanitize agribusiness practice and improving service delivery.
“Secondly, there are all sort of policies from the government but they are not followed through. We would do this today, tomorrow another thing. Government comes, government goes, we don’t have consistency. The institute is there to make sure that these policies stand.”
