Bloomberg to invest US$250M in establishment of modern and conditioned warehouses in Nigeria for storage of fresh farm produce

Nevin Barich

ABUJA, Nigeria , May 13, 2014 (Pan African News Agency) – As Nigeria moves to reduce post-harvest losses in the country, an American company, Bloomberg, says it will invest US$250 million in the establishment of modern and conditioned warehouses for the storage of fresh farm produce.

Under the government programme to reduce post-harvest farm produce, Bloomberg intends to establish one conditioned warehouse in each of the 774 local government areas in Nigeria.

Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, said on Tuesday in Abuja, at a regional meeting of Commissioners in charge agriculture, that the Federal Government had succeeded in attracting the presence of this foreign company which is reputed to be the largest manufacturer of modern warehouses in the world.

Dr. Adesina added that the government had already started importation nine conditioned warehouses worth US$30 million.

The minister, who decried the post-harvest losses experienced by Nigerian farmers, expressed federal government's irrevocable commitment to "mitigate this ugly development".

Towards the revitalisation of the cocoa sector in Nigeria, he called on State governments of the cocoa-producing areas of the country to establish Cocoa Investment Fund to boost the production of the crop.

The fund is expected to be used in the massive distribution of cocoa hybrids or seedlings, establishment of cocoa plantation, industrial processing as well as value addition of cocoa.

Already, the Federal Government has so far distributed about 1.1 million hybrid pods of cocoa with 85 per cent of the seedlings distributed in the South West States of the country.

While expressing the resolve of the Federal Government to recapitalise cocoa in the South West, the minister charged the State governments in this geo-political zone to show more commitment and collaborate with the Federal Government to realise the dream of resuscitating the cocoa sector.

He also noted that the Federal Government intends to distribute 3.5 million pods of cocoa in all the cocoa-producing states across the country, adding that about 74,664 cocoa farmers from the South West have registered under Cocoa Growth Enhancement Scheme.

-0- PANA MON/VAO 13May2014

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