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Nigeria moves to save N431bn from wheat imports

By BusinessNews Staff on March 22, 2015

Local wheat production is rising and Nigeria will achieve the 68 per cent local production target by year end, the Executive Director, Lake Chad Research Institute, Dr. Gbenga Olabanji, has said.

Olabanji, in an exclusive interview with our correspondent, disclosed that wheat production in the northern part of the country would have increased the current output from 45 to 60 per cent.

He added that the 68 per cent output target set by the Federal Government would be achieved by the end of 2015.

This will help the country to save N431bn from its wheat import bill.

The LCRI boss said, ““Farmers have adopted the improved variety and we have released two new varieties in December, Reyna 28 and Norma Boulaug with average yield of 5.5 to 6.0 tonnes per hectare.

“Presently, we can say have attained about 45 per cent. But if we are to add all the products in all the Northern producing states, we will have close to 60 per cent, so the 68 per cent is still very much achievable.”

Olabanji added that Lake Chad had released an improved variety of seeds that could produce up to five or six tonnes per hectare of wheat while the area of production had also been increased to about 150, 000 hectare.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, had in 2013 said Nigeria would meet 68 per cent wheat needs by 2015.

“In two years, if we accelerate investment, we should be able to produce 2.2 million metric tonnes of wheat. This would meet 68 per cent of our domestic wheat requirements and save Nigeria N431bn in wheat imports annually,” the minister had said.

The Assistant to the Minister on Media and Strategy, Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye, however, said Nigeria had over the years witnessed some setbacks in local production of the commodity due to lack of planting materials, government policy changes and lack of incentives to stakeholders.

Oyeleye said that “the huge increase in consumption coupled with low productivity resulted in importation to fill the gap between demand and supply.

“Local consumption in the country has reached 4.0 million tonnes while production stood at 100,000 tons in 2012. To reverse this trend where more than N600bn in foreign exchange is spent on wheat importation, the Wheat Value Chain was put in place,” he said.

He added that the mandate of the value chain was to increase productivity of wheat from 2.0 tonnes per hectare in 2013 to between 5.5 and 6.0 tonnes by 2017, and the national production from the current 100,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes by 2017, thereby reducing wheat importation by about 50 per cent.

He noted that “this is expected to be achieved through fast and effective distribution of improved wheat varieties like Atila gan Atila which has an average yield of 4.0 tonnes per hectare and the newly released varieties; Reyna 28 and Norma Boulaug with average yield of 5.5 to 6.0 toones per hectare.

“Nigeria has enormous potential and opportunities for wheat production – which is a dry season crop – under irrigation in the Sudan/Sahelian ecological zone of the North East and North West states.”

Oyeleye recalled that the ministry had last year procured two compact milling machines for the two zones at 50 per cent subsidy.

“This planting season which is between November to December, 60, 000 farmers are expected to each receive 50kg bag of wheat seeds at 10 per cent subsidy and two 50kg bags of NPK fertilizer at 50 per cent subsidy; this translates to about 3,000 metric tonnes of seeds and 6,000 metric tonnes of fertilizer,” he added.

[Punch]

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