A Nigerian startup is developing the first agricultural commodities exchange in Africa’s most populous country to take advantage of the government’s efforts to boost farming output to reduce reliance on oil.
The exchange, Integrated Produce City Ltd., will be located near the southern city of Benin, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, a site accessible to nearby growers of cocoa, palm oil, rubber and cassava, Chief Executive Officer Pat Utomi said in an interview.
“The concept of a wholesale-produce market is to enable the farmer to fully dispose of his produce, instead of today where he loses 80 percent of his output” that rots before it can reach the market, Utomi said on Aug. 18 in the capital, Abuja.
Chocolate Factories
The company has put up 20 percent of the required $135 million and is in talks with lenders and investors from South Africa, China and Australia for additional capital, Utomi said, declining to name them. Integrated Produce City signed an agreement with KPMG LLP’s Nigerian unit on Monday to help it raise more capital, Vitus Akudinobi, a spokesman for the new exchange, said.
“Among the factories we’re trying to attract are chocolate makers,” he said. “The entire cocoa value-chain will be represented.”
In addition to cocoa, other major exported products during the last quarter of 2016 were sesame seed, frozen shrimps, soy beans, cashew nuts and crude palm kernel, figures from the statistics agency showed.
Bloomberg