…Ranks 3rd largest globally
Silvex International, a leading commodity trading firm in Nigeria, says the country is ranked third largest exporter of sesame around the globe with trading capacity of over N130 billion in 2019.
The Chief Operating Officer of the Company, Abubakar Ibrahim made this known while presenting a paper at the monthly industry lecture series organized by the Bayero University Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) in Kano, Nigeria.
In the paper titled, “Effective Commodity Aggregation: Bridging the Gap in Nigeria Agricultural Value Chain”, Ibrahim confirmed that despite challenges ranging from fragmented internal markets, poor linkages, unconnected trader/processor relation and unchecked middlemen, Nigeria strived to maintain its status among the top ten exporters of sesame.
He also stated that to bridge the existing gaps and mitigate the challenges, a systematic out-grower, in-grower, aggregation and commodity logistics need to be developed for sustainability and economic prosperity of the country though the agro-industrial sector.
“This is why we invested over N350,000,000 in various out-grower schemes for rice and groundnut in Jigawa state, because as commodity traders, we need to strengthen the support base of smallholder farmers to increase productivity,” he said.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Director of the Centre Prof. Jibrin Muhammad reiterated the University’s effort to connect the industry players with the academic institution of learning for students and researchers to grasp the real time information of the industry.
Silvex International runs commodity aggregation clusters in Kano, Jigawa, Yobe, Katsina, Taraba, Adamawa, Bauchi, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Borno and Gombe and also aggregate grains, especially sesame seeds from West and Central African countries such as Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, Chad and Cameroon.
