Business
CHRYSANTUS Akem, the Programme Coordinator of Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), says Nigeria can invest in growing of wheat to cut down on the cost of importation.
Akem made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.
He said that the huge amount of money being lost to importation of wheat on an annual basis could be used to grow the crop locally, thereby generating income for the country.
He said that wheat could be grown in Africa, particularly Nigeria, contrary to beliefs that it was a Mediterranean crop.
According to him, researches have proven that certain tropic tolerant varieties can grow in Africa.
He said TAAT, an African Development Bank (AfDB) project had begun experimenting those varieties in some select states in the country.
He said wheat was one of the 18 commodities targeted by the TAAT project to ensure improved quality and high productivity of farm produce.
Akem said that about 500,000 hectares of wheat had been grown in Nigeria through the TAAT project within the last three years.
“Wheat is a crop that can be adapted to Nigeria to reduce massive import and the huge amount of money spent every year in importing wheat into the country.
“Everybody believes that wheat is a Mediterranean crop and cannot grow in the tropics like Africa.
“Partially true but research has gone into it. We screened a lot of varieties and identified a particular variety not yielding the typical two metric tonnes per hectare but yielding four to eight metric tonnes.
“It can grow very well in Nigeria. Three varieties were released in Nigeria three years ago. We started the previous project with about 50,000 hectares of wheat growing in the country.
“Within three years, we were up to 300, 000 hectares. Right now we are targeting to grow 500,000 if not one million hectares because the technology is there.
“Many people believed it could not grow in Africa but in the previous project we had, we developed varieties that are heat tolerant and could grow in Africa, yielding from four to eight tonnes per hectare,” he said.
The coordinator said a number of Northern states like Kano, Jigawa and Gombe had been targeted for the growing of wheat.
He said that the target states could produce wheat year round under tropical rainfall and through irrigation.
He said that the project had made significant process in ensuring that other African countries set targets on reducing their importation of wheat.
He commended the Federal Government for its support to the project and called for collaboration from the private sector.
On the potential of cassava value chain, Akem disclosed that cassava was another commodity in the TAAT project.
He said that if fully developed, cassava could attract huge investment opportunities, saying that with Nigeria being the number one producer of the commodity in the world, harnessing its potential would translate to huge revenue generation.
He said all hands had been on deck in TAAT to discover how to rapidly multiply cassava and increase productivity.
The coordinator said the market was already there, adding that flour mills were ready to incorporate cassava to make cassava bread.
“We came up with the semi autotrophic technology where you basically can multiply small seedlings of cassava.
“Instead of taking seedlings from one hectare and multiplying into 10 hectares, with the technology, we can take one and multiply more than 100 hectares.
“We have also set up facilities in a number of countries to make sure we continue to be number one in cassava so that we can increase our productivity. That is a technology unique to Africa.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the TAAT is a programme initiated by the AfDB as part of its Feed Africa Initiative.
AfDB’s Feed Africa strategy is aimed at harnessing elite scientific research and technologies among others.
It is also aimed at improving agribusiness across Africa by raising agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight Priority Intervention Areas (PIA).(NAN)
– Sept. 27, 2019 @ 17:49 GMT |
Tags: Nigeria can grow wheat to avoid huge importation cost – TAAT Coordinator
