Price of yam skyrockets in Lagos, Abuja markets as export to UK begins Thursday
There have been observed mop up of yam tubers across major markets in some cities across the country by middlemen who are racing to explore the new window of yam export to Europe and mainly United Kingdom.
Checks by our correspondent in Lagos and Abuja showed sharp rise in the price of the commodity which is now out of reach by ordinary Nigerians.
Business Hilights recalls that the Federal Government said it is targeting about $8 billion annually in foreign exchange from the export of yams to other countries.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said this when he received the Technical Committee on Nigeria Yam Export Programme in Abuja over the weekend.
Ogbeh said the programme to be flagged off on June 29, would enable the country to earn foreign exchange from agricultural produce in order to substitute the oil and gas sector.
Additional checks across Lagos revealed yam tubers that cost about N500 IN may is now about N900 to N1,200.
In Abuja, yam price jumped up from the second week of June and immediately the minister hinted that preparation for export has started.
Ogbeh averred that “Ghana is exporting yams but we are not, yet we account for 61 per cent of the world’s yam production. This programme has to succeed; we must sell whatever we produce to the world because we are buying too much. We allowed ourselves to be deceived”.
“I saw the figures of Ghana’s earnings from yam export and their targets for the future and it was quite impressive. If Ghana can aim at a few billion dollars a year from yams, there is no reason why Nigeria cannot quadruple that.
“I want this committee to begin to engage team of engineers anywhere in the world. Can we design a plough that can make the yam heap? We have to mechanise heap making, otherwise, in the next five years, because of our aging farmers, you will find out that we do not have yams again and we will get into fresh troubles,’’ he said.
Responding, Prof. Simon Irtwange, the Chairman of the committee, said the committee was working with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) to train farmers and also improve some yam varieties.
According to him, “We have prepared a four-year action plan for the yam value chain programme in the country”.
However, some yam sellers who spoke to our correspondent in Lagos decried the time of the resumption of the export, saying it was coming at a very obscure time when harvests is yet to begin.
They argued that it has already put pressure on available yams for local consumption, thus causing arbitrary hike and scarcity of yam in some markets.
Analysts argue that the recent decimation of the agro community population in parts of Zakibiam, Wukari and other key Yam producing communities of Benue and Niger States by the dreaded Fulani herdsmen, they may not begin the processing, marketing and packaging of yam for export this year.
Business Hilights recalls that today, June 26 had earlier been announced as the effective date for yam export to UK before the shifting of date to end of the month.
Head of Nigerian Export Promotion Council’s (NEPC) Export Assistance Office in Benue, Mr. Emmanuel Etim in Makurd earlier in May explained more on the preparedness for the resumption of export during a two-day stakeholders training and awareness for Nigerian Yam Export Programme.
Etim noted that the Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Chief Audu Ogbeh, would inaugurate the first batch of packaged Nigerian yam for export at Lagos port on June 26.
He noted that the programme was aimed at placing Nigeria as a key player in global market through strategic yam export development programmes.
Etim said the NEPC would transform Nigeria’s yam production, processing, packaging and warehousing to meet international standards, drawing from other countries’ yam export experiences.
