Vice President Kashim Shettima on Monday declared that Nigeria and Brazil had moved from dialogue to delivery and from agreement to implementation on their bilateral agriculture and livestock partnership.
This was as Brazil opened its market to Nigerian exports of hibiscus, sesame and shea butter.
Announcing this as the first tangible fruits of President Bola Tinubu’s state visit to Brazil last August, Shettima spoke during a High-Level Nigeria-Brazil Agro-Trade Market Access Milestone meeting at the State House, Abuja.
According to a statement signed on Monday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications, Stanley Nkwocha, Shettima received the Brazilian delegation led by its Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, André Carlos Alves de Paula Filho, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The Vice President who co-chairs the Nigeria-Brazil Strategic Dialogue Mechanism alongside his Brazilian counterpart, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, declared, “We have moved with deliberate steps from dialogue to delivery, from agreements to implementation, and from shared ambition to outcomes that can be counted, weighed and shipped.
“This is precisely how enduring partnerships evolve,” he said.
He described the milestones recorded under the Nigeria-Brazil Agriculture and Livestock Cooperation Framework as the product of months of painstaking institutional work.
Shettima noted that the Joint Agriculture and Livestock Technical Working Group was now fully operational, with active thematic action sub-groups on dairy and livestock genetics, soybean productivity, agricultural policy and agro-climatic risk zoning.
He stated, “I am pleased that we can today report the first tangible fruits of that presidential directive.
“The market access milestones we announce are the product of months of disciplined collaboration between our ministries, our regulatory authorities, our technical experts and our private sector partners.
“They show what becomes possible when political leadership is matched by strong institutions and by the humility to do the unglamorous work of implementation.”
The VP recalled that during the state visit last August, President Tinubu and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had observed that the volume of bilateral agricultural trade between the two economies fell far short of what both nations’ natural endowments permitted.
Consequently, the two leaders jointly instructed their governments to identify opportunities for accelerating trade, investment and technical cooperation.
Shettima expressed Nigeria’s gratitude to the Brazilian government for deepening its institutional presence in Abuja through the appointment of an Agricultural Attaché and the growing engagement of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA, through the Embassy.
These decisions,” he explained, “have drawn our institutions closer, quickened our technical engagement, and helped translate ideas into programmes that touch the ground.”
We are grateful for such investment in our friendship,” he added.
The Vice President also charged state governments and trade promotion bodies to prepare farmers, cooperatives, processors and exporters for the opening markets.
“As these new markets open, your leadership will be indispensable in preparing farmers, cooperatives, processors and exporters to satisfy international standards, to add value at home rather than surrender it abroad, and to ensure that these opportunities ripen into jobs, into incomes, and into growth across your domains,” he stated.
Brazil’s Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, André Carlos Alves de Paula Filho, confirmed that his country was in the final stages of preparing the phytosanitary certificate proposal needed to enable Nigerian exports of hibiscus, sesame and shea butter to enter the Brazilian market.
“Once this work is completed, we will also facilitate contacts between Nigerian exporters and potential Brazilian buyers, creating concrete commercial opportunities for these products in the Brazilian market,” he said.
In April 2026, the federal government revealed plans to scale up its processed shea earnings from 300m in the near term, with potential growth to 9bn by 2030.
That month, Tinubu had extended an existing six-month ban on raw shea nuts to February 2027.
Under the ban, all shea exports must pass through the Nigeria Commodity Exchange framework, as previous exemptions allowing direct raw-nut shipments were removed.
Speaking on Monday, the Brazilian Agriculture Minister affirmed that Brazil was equally committed to expanding access for Nigerian products, noting that the bilateral commitments in agriculture, food security, energy, defence and investment reflected a shared vision of development and prosperity.
For his part, the Governor of Jigawa State, Umar Namadi, commended the partnership and said his state, which he described as contributing 75 per cent of Nigeria’s non-oil exports, would play its part in ensuring the success of the bilateral arrangement.
Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, described Brazil as a model of a country that had transformed itself into one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, and said the bilateral journey under Tinubu was already fast-tracking trade relations.
Nigeria and Brazil formalised their strategic bilateral relationship during Tinubu’s state visit to Brasilia in August 2025, during which both countries signed agreements on trade, aviation, energy and security cooperation.
In June 2025, Brazil’s Vice President, Geraldo Alckmin, visited Nigeria.
The SDM, co-chaired by the two vice presidents, was established to give structure to the implementation of those commitments, with the agriculture and livestock framework emerging as one of the most operationally advanced tracks of the partnership.
