Nigerian Sorghum set for export says ICRISAT representative

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Hakeem Ajeigbe has said that Nigerian sorghum will soon be exported outside the country even as the demands for the produce increased locally. This was disclosed during a visit to Dr. Ajeigbe’s office.

Ajeigbe said that off takers from Nigeria have already been linked with foreigner buyers who are in dear need of the malted sorghum stressing that ‘’very soon we will be exporting malted sorghum to Britain.  I have already linked the major markets to some of our sorghum off takers in Nigeria. They will malt the sorghum and then send it to Britain.  There is somebody who wants to buy them there. Here people always think malt sorghum is for beer alone.  All these malt drink, biscuits, chocolate and beverages all have malted sorghum.  With malted sorghum, you can do so many things; beer is just one of it. I have made the linkage which means that our farmers will be exporting malted sorghum this year, and not next year.  In some week’s time, malted sorghum will be exported outside the country’’

The ICRISAT representative stated further that the  Federal Government (FG) Agricultural Transformation  Support Project (ATAPS 1) has made sorghum to move from subsistence  to commercial crop as more women are now making other food derivatives from the produce  saying ‘’ if you go to the super market now,  you  can find sorghum flour in kilogramme sizes, for example we have taught rural women how to make sorghum snacks, you can see the pop sorghum, it is like pop corn but much better than popcorn, we have  women now in communities making cake, doughnuts  from sorghum, so once you do all of these, then the consumption will go up with better nutrition. You will see a lot of sorghum flour now in the market as its consumption will actually go up’’

Dr.  Ajeigbe also suggested that farmers’ residual crops should always be sold to herdsmen to feed their animals saying the most times conflict occurrence can by this means turned to commercial relationship. He added that ‘’ let us turn issue that can bring conflict to business. Can we turn an interaction that will bring conflict to a business relationship? The answer is yes. For example an average sorghum farm will give you some large sum of residuals that can be processed as feed for animals’’

Speaking on Agricultural Transformation Agenda Programme (ATAPS), he said ICRISAT is set to hit its target of training 4,600 youths on best agronomics practice in some part of the country.