Nigeria spends $4b importing wheat annually, says expert

The Support to Agricultural Research for Development of Strategic Crops (SARDC-SC) wheat compact coordinator for Technology for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), Solomon Assefa has said Nigeria spends 4 billion dollars annually on the importation of wheat. He said this at the TAAT African international conference meeting on wheat value chain held in Abuja.

Assefa who said that the wheat importation into the country leads to poverty disclosed that efforts were being made by TAAT to help farmers in Africa produce more wheat with improved technologies saying this would help to save money and create jobs in Nigeria and Africa as whole.

While advising policy makers to assist in this project to achieve good yield, he said: "Our purpose is that by 2025 wheat importation will stop in Africa. We plan to improve on 100,000 hectares in six states in Nigeria. We need states that will donate lands for this.”

The West African Regional Coordinator and Executive Director, Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) Prof. Abubakar Ibrahim who noted that one of the major challenges in farming is poor communication between farmers and scientists added that despite the available land, Nigeria produces only 10 per cent of her wheat demand.

Abubakar said by importing wheat, Nigeria is giving jobs to other countries at the expense of her own citizens adding that irrigation should be expanded since wheat can grow under irrigation.

 Also, the National Coordinator, Dr. Zakari Turaki said technologies have been generated to boost wheat production in Africa and that seed has been a major challenge but pointed out the availability of market being provided by millers who are off takers.”We are no longer thinking of providing farmers with inputs but technologies that will boost agriculture.”

Turaki compared growing of rice and wheat in Nigeria and said farmers who cultivate rice could also cultivate wheat on the same land because they grow at different seasons adding: "We have all that it takes to grow wheat. The success in rice production should be replicated in wheat.”

TAAT supports “Feed Africa” by providing the needed, proven agricultural and food processing technologies and implementation strategies for inclusion within the Bank’s loans to Regional Member Countries (RMCs).

It has compacts of nine value chains (rice, cassava, wheat, sorghum/millet, maize, high iron beans, orange-fleshed sweet potato, small livestock and aquaculture) and six enabler/cross-cutting (policy, capacity building, ENABLE-TAAT, water management, and fall armyworm.

 13 states cultivate wheat in Nigeria; Kano, Kaduna , Gombe , Bauchi, Yobe Jigawa,Kastina , Sokoto, Zamfara,Kebbi ,Kaduna, Bornu and Plateau.