German Consul General Daniel Krull: Agriculture and Food Processing are Critical in Tackling Food Insecurity

Funke Olaode

The German Consul General in Lagos, Daniel Krull has described agriculture and food processing as vital to Nigeria’s development, pointing out its importance in tackling food insecurity, as well as unlocking economic growth.

He highlighted Germany’s global leadership in food processing, making reference to Germany being Europe’s largest exporter of coffee despite not growing coffee due to its technological capabilities in processing and tailoring products to consumer needs.

Krull made this statement on Wednesday March 25th, 2026 during a networking event organized by German consulate in Lagos to mark the 11th Agrofood Nigeria, which held from March 24th -26th March, 2026.

The Agrofood fair brought together Nigerian businessa stakeholders in the food processing/ packaging value chain, the 14 German companies exhibiting at Agrofood Nigeria and German business/ diplomatic community in Nigeria.

The event highlighted the commitment of German industry to Nigeria over time, especially in the agri-food processing sector.

Agrofood Nigeria, organized by fairtrade Messe GmbH, is a yearly exhibition and conference that gathers actors from across the entire food value chain; from growing food, food ingredients manufacturing, processing / packaging machinery and trade of the final product.

The fair has been organizing B2B exhibitions around the world since 1991 and began in Nigeria in 2015. This year, there were 137 companies from 17 different countries presenting solutions. Since 2017, there has been an “official German Pavilion” at Agrofood, also supported by the German Government. The main goal of Agrofood is to enhance self-sufficiency for the Nigerian food supply, reduce reliance on imported food by bringing in new technologies into Nigeria. This translates into increased food production, job creation, new innovations, wealth creation and industrialization within the country.

Throwing more light on the importance of the fair, Managing Director of fairtrade Messe, Paul März said, “It is a meeting point and market place where industry meets once a year for Nigeria and West African countries to come to Lagos to discuss products with exhibitors”..

Expanding on the impact of Agrofood Nigeria over the years, März pointed out visible improvement in packaging and new business chains, however, still seeing more room for improvement. He stated that there is still a need for better packaging of produce to increase shelf life and make Nigerian products on a par with international standards.

According to März, many companies that exhibited have sold machines for sachets, milk powder, PET bottling and even PET recycling. With its long-termed approach, Agrofood will continue to hold yearly in Nigeria to provide even more solutions to existing problems in Nigeria, such as food safety, recycling and much more.

Corroborating Marz, Consul General Krull maintained that trade relations between Nigeria and Germany remain stable and highlighted a development portfolio of roughly 570 million euros. Besides exhibitions like Agrofood, he pointed out further areas of support from the German Government sector, such as consultations for companies/ start-ups in the food processing sector, Technical Vocational Education Training programs, credit lines and finance windows even for SMEs valued at 5,000 USD provided by the German Desk at Access Bank. In the private sector, German companies that are already established in Nigeria focus on training staff to maintain and operate equipment, thereby promoting technology transfer.

Considering current complex challenges to the agri-food processing sector in Nigeria like insecurity, financial and legal issues and energy supply, Krull believes that complexity is not a reason not to start taking action. “It becomes obvious that there are many keys to success and the challenge is that you have to work on all of them at the same time.

“Nigeria has available resources to create tangible economic growth in the sector for itself and connecting entrepreneurs, solutions and investment together will produce significant positive impact for Nigerians,” Krull added.