Nieuws uit Nigeria

Elder Isaiah Buwah is growing potatoes for forty years in the Plateau State, North Central Nigeria. Having seen the impact from late blight first hand, he truly enjoyed the harvest of the first batch of - resistant - biotech potatoes.

In the midst of a sunlit room in Nnewi, south-east Nigeria, a woman measures out four parts of sweet potato puree – the colour of apricot – into a large basin containing six parts wheat flour.

Lamb Weston has introduced Poundo Potato Flakes to the Nigerian market and stresses the need to improve the margin in the potato value-chain

Mustapha Baba Shehuri, minister of state for agriculture and rural development, says Nigeria will be among the world’s top three potato producing countries by 2025.

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) has commenced training for Irish potato farmers in Kano. The training which began on Monday, June 21, will end on Friday, June 25, 2021.

In Nigeria, the Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, attended the official start of the construction of a Potato Tissue Culture Laboratory in the Mangu Local Government Area.

BlackPace Africa, an Africa-focused investment management and advisory firm, and the Plateau State government have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) towards a joint development arrangement to upscale potato production in the state and set up a potato processing facility in Jos, the state capital.

The potato value chain project in Plateau state (Nigeria) - to be funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) - will be formally launched in the state by June.

Potato farming in Nigeria has the potential to generate billions of Naira (millions of USD) annually. Nigeria produces about 1.5 million tons of potato per year and has a per capita consumption of about 7kg per year. However, many farmers struggle to sell to formal commercial buyers, mainly due to poor product quality and lack of organization.

Cros Agro Allied Ltd, a Nigerian agribusiness company, has announced a commitment to invest $65 million in the country’s potato sector, which includes the realization of the production of French fries and potato flakes