Nigeria’s Central Bank (CBN) has revealed that the country spends $2 billion annually on wheat imports.
This was revealed by Yila Yusif, director of the CBN’s development finance department, at a wheat conference and stakeholder engagement titled “Improving and Sustaining Wheat Value Chain Development in Nigeria.”
He emphasized the wheat value chain’s enormous potential to have a game-changing impact in the agricultural sector.
After making steady progress in the rice and maize value chains, Yusuf said the CBN wanted to focus on the wheat value chain for the 2021/2022 dry season planting.
“The CBN plans to address key problems in the value chain through financing massive production of wheat in Nigeria and seeks to facilitate sustained availability of high yield seed variety in-country and improve general productivity,” he said.
He said that wheat was the another- topmost contributor to the country’s food import bill, putting pressure on the country’s foreign reserve as over$ 2bn was spent annually on the importation of over five million metric tonnes (MT) of wheat.
Yusuf further estimated that only one percent or MT of wheat, out of the five to six million metric tonnes of wheat consumed annually, was produced locally.
He explained that the CBN intervention had become critical due to the high demand for wheat in Nigeria and the impotence to meet that demand.
Also speaking at the event, Mohammed Abubakar, the minister of farming and bucolic development, expressed dismay that the country’s wheat importation and wheat import bills had continued to increase in recent generations.
He exhorted all stakeholders to band to reverse the trend as the epochs go by investing another in the value chain, making another investment.
On his part, Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of Kano, charged stakeholders in the wheat value chain to be transparent in their dealings and to commence preparation for both farming and production of wheat.
The governor commended the CBN’s efforts in boosting the commodity value chain and encouraged the bank to expedite action in releasing funds.
Ganduje, who was represented by his deputy, Nasiru Gawuna, emphasised that partnership among stakeholders in wheat production value chains remained critical in boosting the country’s quest to be self-sufficient in the production of wheat.
In March, Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor, had said the bank was working to increase local wheat production and reduce importation by 60 percent.
