Nigeria, Brazil Collaborate To Boost Food Security

Brazil and Nigeria have brainstormed on strategies for  private sector collaboration to enhance food security in Nigeria.

The meeting which sprung off the fourth edition of the Brazil-Nigeria Trade Forum held September 6, 2023, saw the Embassy of Brazil host global think-tank organisation and Latin America’s largest think-tank, FGV Europe, Brazil’s International Center for Innovation and Transfer of Agricultural and Environmental Technology (CIITTA) alongside Nigeria’s farmers, federal and state governments.

Its major aim is to introduce private sector to private sector proposal of assistance, using CIITTA’s three pillars of operation: to reduce cost of agricultural production of smallholder farmers, increase quality (seedling) yield, as well as increase the productivity of smallholder and general farmers’ yields through the transfer of knowledge and technology, in order to boost food security.

“We invited some of our think-tank representative CIITTAA, and some Brazilian companies are here to brainstorm with some Nigerians and governors and private sector representatives to get feedback from them, and tailor some sort of programme or system in agriculture that is inclusive and sustainable for Nigeria,” said Brazilian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Ronaldo Vieira.

The participating Brazilian companies are not only willing to sell their service and their products (seedlings and machinery), but with CIITTAA as the coordinating institution, creating a system whereby they are obliged to share technology.

Speaking at the meeting, President CIITTAA International, Cleber Guarany said Nigeria and Brazil share similar climate, soil, foods and a large number of smallholder farmers. However, while Brazil’s smallholder farmers (via cooperatives) contribute 70 per cent of the nation’s food production, in addition to feeding a billion of the global population, Nigeria’s smallholder farmers struggle to feed the population.

Meanwhile, Andrew Kwasari, founder, SCL Food Systems, which operates an integrated farming system based off the principle of regenerative agriculture, recommended the nation’s adaption of its pastoralism method of agriculture.

“Pastoralism method of agricultural production, as practiced today in Nigeria, is no longer feasible. It is either we adapt it or the whole of the livestock goes extinct. If not for the conflict between farmers and herders, but by shared output, productivity and competitiveness, will be extinct. There is no way in the next decade that it will be competitive.

“You have to be competitive as a business. You cannot make movement in search of food, a model to produce commercial meat and milk from cattle. The time for that is gone,” said Kwasari.