[4-0900-A] Keynote Lecture 4th

[4-0900-A-02] Postharvest Technology and Food Engineers’ role in Agribusiness Value Chain in Africa

*Akindele Folarin Alonge¹ (1. University of Uyo(Nigeria))

Keywords:Agribusiness, Value Chain, Africa

Agriculture and investment in the agribusiness space has been identified as the single greatest potential source of inclusive growth in Africa. Nigeria population is currently about 190 million. Nigeria’s population expected to be 250+ million by 2030 and over 400+ million by 2050. This requires an urgent planning and aggressive execution of programmes that will bring about growth in key elements of the economy. The government has identified agriculture as one of the areas to diversify economic to avoid decline in economic growth of the nation. Agricultural sector is the dominant sector contributing a lot to Gross domestic product and crop production remains the major driver of the sector for a large percent of nominal agriculture GDP. There is need to modernize agriculture such the dominant smallholder farmers can be motivated to do more. Innovations and technologies, value addition and good government policies will enhance productivity. Postharvest and Food Process Engineers will play a major role in helping to add value through processing, storage, packaging of the agricultural crops livestock and food produce.