Nigeria and Brazil on Monday moved from diplomatic pledges to concrete market actions rolling out first operational elements of a bilateral agriculture and livestock partnership.
Vice President Kashim Shettima who disclosed this while speaking at a high-level market-access meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, said the two countries had “moved with deliberate steps from dialogue to delivery, from agreements to implementation.”
NewsQuest reports that technical teams and regulators from both countries prepared private-sector operators to begin trading commodities under the Nigeria‑Brazil Agro‑Trade Initiative.
The meeting, co-chaired by Vice President Shettima and Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin under the Nigeria‑Brazil Strategic Dialogue Mechanism, drew a Brazilian delegation led by Agriculture and Livestock Minister André Carlos Alves de Paula Filho.
The meeting is described as the operational follow-through to President Bola Tinubu’s state visit to Brasília earlier this year.
“The true measure of global partnership is not in the agreements signed but in their implementation and the benefits accruing to citizens of both countries,” Shettima said, describing the initiative as an outgrowth of months of “disciplined collaboration” among ministries, regulators, technical experts and private-sector partners.
He outlined early milestones under the cooperation framework, including the activation of a Joint Agriculture and Livestock Technical Working Group and thematic subgroups focused on dairy and livestock genetics, soybean productivity, agricultural policy and agro‑climatic risk zoning.
Those groups, Vice President Shettima said, are preparing the rules, sanitary protocols and technical assistance that will let farmers, processors and exporters begin trading.
Brazil’s Agriculture Minister on his part, said his team was finalizing a phytosanitary-certificate proposal to permit Nigerian exports of hibiscus, sesame and shea butter into Brazil, and pledged to link Nigerian exporters with potential Brazilian buyers.
“We will facilitate contacts that create concrete commercial opportunities,” Mr. de Paula Filho said.
Vice President Shettima had also noted that the partnership was a remedy for a trade relationship that lags behind the two countries’ production capacities.
The Vice President recalled that President Tinubu and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had directed governments to identify opportunities to accelerate trade, investment and technical cooperation.
Shettima commended Brazil’s expanding institutional presence in Abuja—citing a newly appointed agricultural attaché and greater engagement from EMBRAPA, Brazil’s agricultural research agency—as helping translate ideas into programmes “that touch the ground.”
He said the immediate challenge will be preparing farmers and processors to meet international standards and to add value domestically rather than export raw commodities.
Jigawa State Governor Umar Namadi, whose state supplies a large share of Nigeria’s non‑oil exports, pledged support for the programme.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, described Brazil as a model of agricultural transformation and said the initiative would help fast‑track Nigeria’s agricultural exports.
The initiative represents one of several recent efforts by African and Latin American governments to deepen South‑South trade ties through technical cooperation and market access measures.
Our correspondent gathered that for Nigeria, the partnership could open export opportunities and strengthen domestic value chains; for Brazil, it offers new buyers and closer links with a major West African market.
