Kaduna state joins wheat race, says Lake Chad Institute boss

Kaduna State governor

The Executive Director, Lake Chad Research Institute, Dr. Oluwasina Olabanji has said that Kaduna state Government in its economy diversification efforts was about to finish planting five thousand hectares of wheat to upscale productivity towards substituting import bill of four billion naira annually.

Dr. Olabanji who expressed his delight about the decision of Kaduna state government under the leadership of Governor El Rufai to embark on wheat production of about 5,000 hectares out of the initial plan of 50000 hectares saying the acceleration production of the crop through anchor borrower programme that ensured off takers would proffer solution to our high import bill in no distant future to come in the country stated that the seed planted was supplied by his Institute with best agronomics provision to farmers.

Dr. Olabanji said the Governor had expressed interest to invest in the wheat cultivation despite the fact that the state was not among the first pilot states under the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) anchor borrower programme, adding the planting was already commence to meet the dry season planting for processing to high quality wheat flour to checkmate import as planned by the federal government.

According to Dr. Olabanji “Nigeria for instance currently imports four million metric tons of wheat, spending $44 billion on the commodity every year, a figure that is expected to reach $100 billion by 2030 as Nigerians are predicted to consume over ten million tons of imported wheat to satisfy their growing demand for non-traditional foods like pasta, noodles and bread”