Stakeholders revisit Nigeria’s wheat production targets

Worried by poor wheat production in Nigeria, agricultural experts and other stakeholders in wheat value-chain have resuscitated the set target of wheat optimisation in the country.

Critical among the targets renewed by the stakeholders in the wheat value chain include, yearly production of 250,000 hectares of wheat from the present 150,000 hectares.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria spent N898.2 billion on wheat importation to meet its about 90 per cent consumption demand yearly.

Although, Federal Government’s intervention through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) injection of N40 billion into wheat production accounted for an upward increase of 500,000 metric tonnes of local production in the year 2022 from 60,000 metric tonnes in 2020, the importation of the grain is still on the increase.

However, the revival of the target mantra being anchored by Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) under the African Development Bank (AfDB) is focused on production of quality seed varieties and building capacity of stakeholders to meet the target.

At the opening of a two-day stakeholders’ engagement on wheat seed sector workshop, TAAT programme Coordinator, Dr. Chris Akem explained that conscious effort is being channeled to reviving Nigeria’s potential in what production.

Akem expressed worry about bottlenecks limiting the country’s potential in wheat production, noting that with renewed commitment and by putting the right policy in place, Nigeria will not only catch up with Sudan and Ethiopia, but multiply its production margin.

“Nigeria has the potential to increase production and even catch up with Sudan and Ethiopia in production, if only we can address our challenges. Parts of the challenges are lack of political will, bureaucracy, and sometimes policy inconsistency.

“A government can put up a policy that could be working fine and suddenly another government would surface and terminate that and introduce another policy. Now, what we are putting together now is to revive the target put in place two years ago to increase production with good agricultural activities, quality seeds and extending areas of production”, Akem noted.

On his part, National program manager Flour Milling Association of Nigeria (FMN) Aliyu Samaila expressed confidence that Nigeria will meet and even surpass the target on wheat production, provided the right attitude and partnership of critical stakeholders are guaranteed.

Samaila disclosed that with the impact of FMN on manpower development and technological investment on wheat production in seven states, presently yielding 3.2 tonnes per hectare, the country’s future in wheat production is bright.

Although, Samaila explained that it might take some time to attain significant reduction of wheat importation, considering the wide gap in existence, he believed farmers must be convinced to cultivate the right attitude in the production.

Chairman, House Committee on agricultural institutions, Munir Babba DanAgundi advocated more technical and financial support for farmers to achieve the set target.