Nigeria To Supply Tons Of Red Meat, Soya To Saudi

Nigeria is set to begin the supply of 200, 000 metric tons of red meat and one million tons of soya beans to Saudi Arabia as part of a business deal with the Asian country.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security in Nigeria, Abubakar Kyari, disclosed this to State House Correspondents at the end of the National Economic Council meeting for June, presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima.

The Minister said this was based on the request of Saudi Arabia after President Tinubu attended the Saudi-African Summit last year.

“I briefed the Council on the efforts of the President in trying to be the marketer-in-chief of Nigeria when he attended the Saudi-Africa Summit in November 2023, where I on the sidelines met with my counterpart the Minister of Agriculture of Saudi Arabia and discussed the areas of partnership in the agricultural space.

“He later paid a return two-day visit to Nigeria where we exposed him to all our agri-business entrepreneurs and they had far-reaching discussions and shortly after he left, Saudi Arabia sent us an expression of interest that they want 200, 000 metric tons of red meat every year and one million tons of soya.

“We had already last week had a meeting with our entrepreneurs and we have come out with a road map where we can supply and satisfy that demand,” the Minister disclosed.

Back home, the Agriculture Minister said the Nigerian government has so far released one million five hundred bags of assorted fertilizer to farmers across the country.

2000 Tractors

Furthermore, he said the fertilizer is free and more would be done for the farmers through the greener hope programme, which will give more incentives to the farmers, worth one billion dollars.

He said: “I also briefed the Council on the interventions so far on the 42, 000 metric tons of which have been delivered to all the States and also the 20 trailers of rice per State.

“We have also released 1.5 million bags of fertilizer which are under evacuation by the State governments. The fertilizer will be given to farmers free of charge. Then I also went ahead and briefed the Council on the mechanization programmes undertaken by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“We have more in place now. One is the Greener Hope, which is a 10-year one billion dollar consortium led by Origin Group, to syndicate the Greener Hope agricultural reform where they will set up 1000 agro centre service providers across the country with tractors; we will have a minimum of 2000 tractors a year for the next five years.”

Abubakar Kyari also said 600, 000 youths would be engaged under the programme to run the proposed 1000 agro service centres.

Lantana Nasir