Olugbenga Ade-Oluwa, the National Coordinator of the Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) Initiative in Nigeria, says the country is among the least countries practising organic agriculture in Africa.

Mr Ade-Oluwa said this during the 2021 annual National Organic Agriculture Business Summit (NOABS) Local Organising Committee’s inauguration on Thursday in Abuja.

He said one of the essences of the summit is to scale up Nigeria’s level of participation in organic farming and improve its development.

“The summit will create awareness on the benefits of organic farming and improve on the marketing of the product within and outside Nigeria. It is also one of the ways of addressing the challenges of organic agriculture development in the country,” he said.

The coordinator emphasised the need for capacity building of practitioners in the organic agriculture sector to contribute to food security, income generation, employment, and systems resilience, among other benefits.

The summit, he said, would mainstream organic agriculture into regular activities of relevant ministries, departments, and agencies.

The Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and Chairman of the LOC, Olusegun Awolowo, added that global organic product sales might move from $100 billion to $150 billion within the next five years.

Mr Awolowo, represented by Salami Akinshola, the Deputy Director, Product Development Department, said, “It is an opportunity to develop Nigeria’s organic food sector with the high demand for organic product both locally and internationally.”

According to him, many Nigerian agro-products such as ginger, hibiscus, moringa, tiger-nuts, sesame seed, turmeric, and soybeans can be grown organically.

He explained that it took over 15 years for global organic product sales to reach $50 billion in 2008, adding that it surpassed the $100 billion mark in 2018.

“With COVID-19 changing the way we shop and eat, the next leap to $150 billion could be within the next five years,” Mr Awolowo pointed out.

He mentioned that the value of organic food demand had risen significantly due to global awareness on the essence of food safety concern and focus on organically produced crops.

The Organic Agriculture Business Summit, scheduled for September, will focus on improving the quality of organic produce from Nigeria.

It will also address the incidence of Nigerian produce being rejected in the world market.

(NAN)