Nigeria’s agribusiness sector holds vital potential to drive industrial development, create jobs and enhance export earnings, however the nation’s continued reliance on uncooked commodity exports limits the worth it captures from agricultural manufacturing.
In this unique interview with Nairametrics, the Group Managing Director of Johnvents Group, John Alamu spoke on the boundaries to scaling agriculture processing in Nigeria.
He mentioned how Johnvents Group has expanded from farmer aggregation into cocoa processing, meals manufacturing and commodity buying and selling, with mixed annual cocoa processing capability of 48,000 metric tonnes throughout its two Nigerian services.
Alamu additionally outlined the financial alternatives Nigeria might unlock by processing extra agricultural produce regionally, the challenges going through the sector and the corporate’s plans to improve cocoa processing capability to 60,000 metric tonnes yearly by 2030.
Nairametrics: Tell us about Johnvents and the defining selections that reworked the enterprise into what it’s immediately?
John Alamu: Johnvents started in 2014 with a sensible aim: to assist smallholder farmers entry coaching, inputs, finance, and dependable markets. In 2016, we included as Johnvents Consulting Limited and have become a buying and selling firm, aggregating what farmers produced and promoting it to offtakers.
Between 2016 and 2020, we moved into large-scale buying and selling and constructed out farmer networks and aggregation hubs throughout Nigeria. That expertise gave us an in depth understanding of the provision chain and of the place worth was being misplaced.
The defining shift got here in 2021, after we determined to cease solely shifting commodities and begin processing them. We acquired the 18,000-metric-tonne Coop Cocoa Factory, which grew to become Johnvents Industries Limited, and commissioned our personal cocoa manufacturing facility in Ondo State.
We reached 5,000 tonnes processed inside six months, and that very same yr we launched the Cocoa Farmers Empowerment Programme, with a aim of reaching 150,000 farmers by 2030.
In 2022, we earned Rainforest Alliance certification, launched regionally packaged pure cocoa powder, started exporting from Akure to Europe and North America, and based our logistics arm, Haven Hauling. In 2023, we acquired Premium Cocoa Products in Ile-Oluji, Nigeria’s oldest cocoa processor, which elevated our mixed annual cocoa-processing capability to 48,000 metric tonnes.
We additionally expanded our buying and selling portfolio to greater than 25 commodities and launched Johnvents Foods. In 2024 we established Johnvents DMCC in Dubai as our worldwide buying and selling hub and arrange Noble-Eagle Industries, broadening our presence in edible oils, feed, water and seasoning. That was additionally the yr we grew to become Nigeria’s largest sesame exporter.
The thread connecting these milestones is our technique: construct from the farmer and the commodity, add worth by processing and manufacturing, and join African manufacturing to prospects at residence and internationally.
Nairametrics: Your enterprise has expanded from agricultural commodity aggregation into cocoa processing, meals manufacturing, logistics, edible oils, and different product classes. What is the strategic rationale behind this diversification, and which enterprise segments at present contribute essentially the most to income and profitability?
John Alamu: The rationale is easy: we wish to personal as a lot of the worth chain as we are able to. We are strengthening the connection between agricultural provide, processing, manufacturing, and markets, with a transparent concentrate on rising worth addition and constructing globally aggressive companies from Africa.
A enterprise centered solely on aggregation is uncovered to value fluctuations and has restricted affect over what occurs additional alongside the provision chain. By sourcing, processing, manufacturing, shifting, and promoting merchandise, we are able to diversify our actions, strengthen our resilience, and retain extra worth in Nigeria.
Our diversification is deliberate: we wish to construct a related agribusiness, not a group of unrelated companies. The mannequin has three pillars: Agri & Agro-Allied, FMCG, and Logistics. The first connects us to farmers and commodity provide, the second turns agricultural produce into merchandise for customers and trade, and the third strikes items by the worth chain.
Beyond cocoa, we take part in cashew, sesame, soybeans, legumes, edible nuts, rice, and rubber. Our downstream companies produce client meals, edible oils, animal feed, seasoning and water, and our worldwide buying and selling presence connects us to international markets. Approximately 75% of Group income is linked to exports.
On which segments contribute most, I’d distinguish between gross sales and profitability, as a result of a high-revenue enterprise may also carry greater working-capital, vitality, or enter costs. Cocoa processing and commodity buying and selling are the established core of the Group, whereas FMCG and Logistics broaden our income base and create additional value-adding alternatives. Our focus is worthwhile development, money self-discipline, and the contribution every enterprise makes to the Group as an entire.
Nairametrics: Nigeria continues to export substantial volumes of agricultural commodities in uncooked kind, shedding alternatives to seize extra worth by home processing. How a lot is Johnvents contributing to reversing this development, and what further worth, jobs and export earnings might Nigeria generate if extra of its cocoa have been processed regionally?
John Alamu: We see native processing as central to the way forward for Nigerian agribusiness. Johnvents operates two cocoa-processing services in Akure and Ile-Oluji, with mixed annual capability of 48,000 metric tonnes.
They produce cocoa liquor, butter, cake and powder, that are elements for chocolate, confectionery, drinks and different merchandise, and we export these derivatives to Europe, the United States and different markets.
We are turning Nigerian beans into higher-value merchandise as an alternative of delivery them out uncooked. Processing in Nigeria retains extra industrial exercise, abilities and worth addition right here earlier than merchandise enter worldwide markets, and throughout the broader Group we make use of greater than 4,000 individuals.
The alternative for Nigeria is appreciable. In the primary quarter of 2026, in accordance to NBS information, superior-quality cocoa beans earned N596.9 billion, about 51% of all agricultural export earnings, whereas pure cocoa butter earned solely N41.69 billion.
Industry estimates recommend that processed cocoa merchandise are value two to 3 times as a lot per tonne as uncooked beans. Every tonne processed regionally subsequently earns extra in export income, helps extra manufacturing facility, logistics and distribution jobs, and builds extra native provide chains than a tonne of beans shipped uncooked.
Nairametrics: Nigeria is grappling with meals inflation, rising enter costs, insecurity in farming communities, and climate-related disruptions. Which of those challenges poses the best risk to the expansion of the agribusiness sector, and what sensible interventions are wanted to enhance agricultural productiveness?
John Alamu: These challenges are interconnected, and their relative significance varies by crop and placement. For long-term productiveness, local weather change and declining farm resilience are main issues as a result of they have an effect on yields, high quality, and provide reliability.
Insecurity can stop farmers from reaching farms or markets, whereas excessive enter, vitality, transport, and financing costs could make manufacturing and processing much less viable. Food inflation is commonly the results of a number of of those pressures appearing collectively.
Farmers want improved planting supplies, extension providers, climate-smart practices, finance and reliable markets. Supply chains want higher rural infrastructure, storage, logistics and dependable vitality.
Processors want a coverage and financing atmosphere that helps gear funding and native worth addition. Traceability and accountable sourcing additionally matter, as a result of worldwide patrons more and more count on proof of the place commodities come from and the way they’re produced.
At Johnvents Group, our interventions are sensible. We have educated greater than 40,000 farmers in climate-smart and good agricultural practices, accountable sourcing, farm mapping, and traceability. We are working to distribute a million cocoa seedlings by 2027, and we’ve got already distributed greater than 300,000 cocoa seedlings since 2022.
Our work additionally contains child-labour monitoring and remediation methods in cocoa-growing communities, whereas our processing investments embrace extra environment friendly vitality methods. These steps can not remedy each problem alone, however they strengthen the resilience and sustainability of the worth chain. Government, monetary establishments, analysis organisations, processors and farmers should work collectively to scale them.
Nairametrics: Despite Nigeria’s vital agricultural potential, the nation nonetheless struggles to obtain large-scale industrial processing throughout a number of commodity worth chains. What are the key boundaries stopping native processors such as you from working at scale, and what wants to change to entice extra personal funding into agricultural processing?
John Alamu: One of the primary boundaries is financing. Agricultural processing is seasonal and working-capital heavy: a processor should purchase massive volumes of uncooked materials in a brief crop window and carry stock by processing, delivery, and buyer assortment, which takes round 150 days at seasonal peak. Borrowing costs have been very excessive till the current charge reduce, and long-tenor naira funding stays scarce.
Other boundaries embrace the fee and reliability of vitality, transport and port logistics, foreign-exchange volatility, and constant raw-material high quality and traceability. Building a manufacturing facility alone doesn’t remedy these issues. The whole chain, from farmers and aggregation to utilities, logistics, and export markets, should work.
Nigeria can entice extra funding by predictable coverage implementation, infrastructure that lowers working costs, finance suited to agricultural seasons and industrial asset lives, stronger extension and farmer-support methods, and environment friendly export processes.
Risk-sharing and development-finance partnerships can assist mobilise longer-tenor capital, and our expertise with IFC and BII reveals the worth of financing mixed with technical assist for capability, vitality effectivity and traceability. Investors want confidence {that a} well-run plant can safe uncooked supplies, function competitively and attain prospects reliably.
Nairametrics: Looking forward to 2030, what would success appear like for Johnvents in phrases of processing capability, home market penetration, exports, farmer affect, and profitability? And what’s the single biggest problem that might stop the corporate from reaching these ambitions?
John Alamu: By 2030, success for Johnvents Group would imply turning into a stronger, extra built-in agribusiness: supporting over 150,000 cocoa farmers, increasing native processing and manufacturing, rising our client companies, reaching extra home and worldwide prospects, and doing so with disciplined, sustainable profitability.
We plan to distribute a million cocoa seedlings by 2027 and to improve mixed annual cocoa-processing capability to 60,000 metric tonnes. We additionally purpose to join extra African agricultural manufacturing to markets and seize extra worth regionally.
For the enterprise, success means bettering utilisation of current belongings, investing the place demand justifies it, constructing trusted manufacturers, strengthening traceability and sustaining the monetary self-discipline wanted to stand up to commodity cycles.
One overarching problem could be financing development competitively whereas managing the volatility and working-capital calls for of agricultural provide chains. Raw-material costs, vitality, local weather, and logistics all matter, however they grow to be particularly troublesome when a enterprise can not entry enough inexpensive capital on the proper time.
Our response is to deepen farmer relationships, enhance operational effectivity, diversify markets and merchandise, and match funding to sustainable demand. We are formidable about 2030, however we wish resilient and worthwhile development, not development for its personal sake.
