Despite efforts by the Federal Government to make the country self-reliant in food production, the India Government has appealed that it should increase importation of agro products from its country.

The Indian Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh, while playing host to his Nigerian counterpart, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said Nigeria should consider import of agro commodities such as wheat, rice, maize, cotton, pepper and fresh grapes.
Singh, according to Economic Times, also called on the African country to take advantage of the line of credit extended to it and training programmes for agriculture and the allied sector.

“Nigeria is India’s largest trading partner in Africa. There is tremendous potential for further expanding this volume. Nigeria may consider importing fresh grapes, pepper, wheat, maize, rice and cotton,” Singh was quoted as saying in the release issued by the agriculture ministry.

While appreciating Nigeria for encouraging Indian firms to explore opportunities in its agriculture sector — both as investors and agro-service providers — the minister said India was keen to share its rich agricultural experience.
According to Singh, India recently increased training slots under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme to 310 from 200 annually for Nigeria, which also include short-term training programmes in agriculture and allied sectors.

The minister exhorted Nigerian to take advantage of the about $10 billion concessional loan earlier extended to African nations.
“India would be glad to contribute to the Nigerian government’s priorities in agriculture and allied sectors,” he added.

Last year, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Nagabushana Reddy, disclosed that trade relations between Nigeria and India hit $10 billion in 2016.
He said that there was a conscious effort on the part of both nations to increase the figure by further expanding the scope of their business relations.

“We are also looking at how we can contribute to Nigeria’s effort to implement the green evolution, a major initiative launched by the President of Nigeria, which is to make Nigeria self-sufficient in agriculture and at the same time also produce for export to other countries so as to lessen the dependence on oil export,” he said.

He stated that India’s relation with Nigeria was very robust with about 35,000 Indian nationals and a vast majority of Indian companies operating in various sectors of the Nigerian economy. Areas of current collaboration between the two countries he said include, agriculture, defense, healthcare infrastructure as well as socio-cultural amongst others.

“We are quite happy with the current state of engagement between India and Nigeria and there is more to be done. India/Nigeria engagement will complete 60 years in 2018 and we are working to see how this engagement can be further enhanced.

“Engagement at higher levels has provided sufficient platforms for enhancing India Nigeria relationships. Let’s not forget at this point in time, India is the largest trading partner of Nigeria. Similarly for India, Nigeria is the largest trading partner in Africa, which means there is considerable bilateral economic engagement which is providing us with sufficient momentum to make the relationship grow further. In 2016, trade volume was close to $10 billion,” he said.

Source: https://newtelegraphonline.com/2018/01/agro-import-india-seeks-nigerias-cooperation/