The U.S. Mission in Nigeria has expressed its commitment to supporting innovative agricultural collaboration that promotes nutrition and food security in Nigeria.
The United States Soybean Export Council (USSEC) in collaboration with stakeholders in Nigeria’s agronomy and poultry industry and the Federal Government recently hosted a nutrition and food security forum titled “Nigeria Now” to explore partnership strategies that will help increase access to healthy and nutritional food.
More than 8,000 people from the international poultry industry including the Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ben Ayade, attended the event which was held in Atlanta, Georgia.
The forum highlighted the importance of accessibility of affordable protein to sustainable national development.
Gerald Smith, Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at the U.S. Mission to Nigeria explained that the forum enhanced collaboration while enabling Nigerian industry stakeholders to meet the country’s vision for nutrition and food security.
CEO of USSEC, Jim Sutter, underscored the need for a shared priority that will enable nutrition and food security for families, communities and countries around the world, and more specifically to improve access to healthy and nutritional food.
Sutter reiterated USSEC’s commitment to collaborate with varied stakeholders in Nigeria’s soy value-chain.
“We want to continue building on our growing partnerships in 2022 to help Nigerian leaders meet their food and nutrition vision for the citizens of their country,” Sutter said.
Kevin Roepke, USSEC’s Regional Director of Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa said, “We hope Nigeria will take a diversified and multi-faceted approach to achieving food and nutrition security.”
“Local food and soy production is and will remain critically important, and we invite leaders to consider complementing their local supply with high quality imports to most effectively and sustainably meet nutrition needs,” he added.
Applauding existing partnerships, Roepke said the Nigeria Now Forum will provide a pathway for accelerating food and nutrition security through collaboration and the identification of additional synergies and strengths.
USSEC is a non-profit US trade group representing US soybean producers, processors, commodity shippers, merchandisers, allied agribusinesses, and agricultural organizations. The group’s main goal is building preference, improving the value, and enabling market access for the use of U.S. Soy for human consumption, aquaculture, and livestock feed in 82 countries across the world.
