By Nume Ekeghe
The AFEX Commodities Exchange Limited, an agriculture value chain, has disclosed that it facilitated trade in commodities with total value of $68 million (N28 billion) in the last five years.
This was revealed yesterday during the virtual unveiling of the ‘AFEX Impact Report: Five Years in View.’
Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, an independent consultant who worked on the report and a consultant to AFEX, Ms. Sanne Steemers, said the trading platform was targeting to achieve $68 million worth trade in one year and expects the agriculture landscape in Nigeria to and Africa substantial grow.
She said: “In five years, AFEX traded over 200,000 tonnes cumulatively with the value of about $68 million or N28 billion. This year, AFEX is set to do that five-year volume within one year most likely.”
According to her, AFEX is on a mission to help Africa feed itself, “and that is what has drawn me to AFEX from the start and that is what everyone in the team is wanting to contribute to and helping Africa feed itself means that farmers need to have god livelihoods, processors and food manufactures need to have a proper business module and it means that food security for an entire country and continent.”
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer AFEX Mr. Ayodeji Balogun, stated that the firm was committed to linking farmers and consumers of commodities with a system that supports fair exchange of value which would in turn support the entire agriculture value chain and elevate more farmers out of poverty.
He also said its innovations which are facilitating farmers and agriculture value chain would create an ecosystem whereby farming would be more attractive and that his organisation plans to expand its support to one million farmers nationwide.
Balogun said: “AFEX is in a stage where it is growing very quickly and trade volumes are growing very quickly and this also means there are more farmers that would be included in the scope of trade business.
“At the core of what we are trying to solve is ending poverty and our aspiration at AFEX is to build over the next five years a million small farmers that are foo secure and are earning above the poverty line. “We are proud that today farmers that have worked with AFEX for over three years live above poverty line.
“We are very proud of what we have done over the last five years and we are equally more excited about the journey for the next five years and our journey to scale to 1 million farmers across the continent,” he added.
