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The 2024/25 wet season agricutural survey on crops production cost performance has conspicuously not reported anything about wheat being an economic.
Crops that were officially reported in terms of production cost per hectare between 2024/25 wet seasons included maize, rice, millet, sorghum, cowpea, groundnut, soybean, sweet potato, cassava, cocoyam, yam, banana/plantain, tomato, vegetable and citrus while wheat cost per hectare was not included.
The National Bureau of Statistics ( NBS) has said that Nigeria annually spent over one trillion Naira on wheat import in 2023-2024, a figure the Minister of Agriculture, Sen. Abubarka Kyari described as very disturbing recently in Jos, plateau State.
Responding to the observation by FoodFarmNews, the Executive Director, National Agricutural Extension and Research Liaison Services ( NAERLS) Prof. Yusuf Sani Ahmad said they couldn't capture wheat because it falls into dry season crops adding that funding had been a serious challenge against dry season surveys in the past fifteen years.
Prof. Ahmad said that " I mentioned that we couldn't capture wheat because it's a dry season crop, planted in November/ December and our Wet Season Survey is being conducted between August/September. The last time we conducted Dry Season APS was in 2010 due to funding"
He added that " Our first recommendation called for the support to enable us to conduct it and the agric Minister promised to do that"
Recall that six new varieties of wheat had been injected into its increased production in Nigeria just as the Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang in the 2nd National wheat day in Jos recently has directed his commissioner of Agriculture, Samson Bugama to come up with three years plan that would enhance the crop production.
If there's is commitment to national growth and development, focus and all efforts will be placed on the production of wheat in Nigeria considering the billions of naira Nigeria spent annually on the importation of the crop.
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