NGO Holds Private Sector Investment Forum In The Niger Delta Region

With funding from UKaid, Market Development Programme in the Niger Delta (MADE) is set to hold a one-day private sector investment forum in the Niger Delta region.

The forum, which is billed to hold on Thursday in Owerri, the Imo State Capital has the theme, “Opportunities in Cassava as Live Stock Feeds and Pellets” will focus on bringing together strategic representatives of the different links in the cassava processing value chain, livestock feed millers’, technology fabricators and finance institutions, using a participatory approach.

While speaking to journalists in Owerri over the weekend, the Team Leader of MADE, Tunde Oderinde  said  the forum also seeks to validate a number of recent studies on cassava as an alternative to maize in developing livestock feeds.

Oderinde said the forum will have panel sessions focused on  business-to-business with a view to facilitating links between cassava cluster farmers, processors, agribusiness feed millers’ and financial institutions. He said the private sector investment forum will involve around 120 participants, representing the different actors involved in the cassava growers/processing value chain, traders, millers, policy makers and researchers

He said the outcome of the workshop, which is organised in conjunction with the AFEX Commodities Exchange, PIND and Harvest Plus with the support of DFID Enugu regional Office and the South East/South-South, Department for International Trade and BRACED Commission, will promote networking between cassava growers and millers and, more specifically, between producers, traders and processors with the goal of achieving trade agreements or promises to enter into a contract.

“The keynote presentation at the forum will focus on the price of maize which constitutes the bulk source of livestock feed which has soared high in recent times,” Oderinde said.

He added that forum will discuss the need for other available alternatives to maize so as to check the increase in cost of feed in the market.

MADE is a DFID funded five year programme (2013 – 2018) using  the Markets Work for the Poor (M4P) approach to generate sustainable inclusive economic growth at scale in the non-oil sectors across the nine Niger Delta States.