Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo on Monday in Abuja launched the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, SAPZ, Programme, a cross-cutting value chain investment effort to incentivize agro-industrialization for private sector development.
The SAPZ programme is driven by Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in alignment with the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy of the country’s government.
The programme was recently approved by the Federal Executive Council.
Prof. Osinbajo said at the launch of the program that; “It is designed to develop multiple clusters of Agricultural Transformation Centres (ATCs) and Agro-Industrial Hubs (AIHs) within major clusters of high agricultural production, where functional infrastructure like roads, power, water, communication etc are provided to attract private investment into modern agro-processing and value addition to locally produced crops, livestock and related agribusiness activities.
“So, where a zone has an advantage in rice production, for example, the well-resourced SAPZ would be located there to bring together agricultural producers, processors, aggregators, and distributors to operate in the production, processing and industrialization of rice.”
“The program is now a critical component of our agricultural strategy, which is to accelerate the industrialization of our agricultural sector with the objective of being ahead of our constraints in providing food, nutrition and wealth for the largest population in our continent,” the Vice President said.
