Wheat-based food such as bread and pastries are common in Nigeria. Wheat is a cereal grain in many parts of the world. It was first grown in Lebanon and Syria but later spread across countries through trade; while improved varieties of wheat have been developed following application of science and technology.
Agricultural experts say that it is the third most grown cereal in the world, coming after maize and rice. Global production of wheat is put at between one billion tons and 1.5 billion tons as at 2017. Nigeria is the second largest consumer of wheat in Sub-Saharan Africa, coming behind South Africa which is a wheat producer.
Wheat has been a product cultivated in Nigeria long before the advent of Europeans to Nigeria. Wheat production states in Nigeria includes Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina, Yobe, Kaduna, Borno, Bauchi, Adamawa, Jigawa, Gombe and Kano. In these states night temperatures range between 15-20 degrees Celsius (°C), which makes the land good for massive hard-wheat production.
The average annual rainfall in these states varies between 500mm and 120mm which make the states suitable for the cultivation of wheat. But, where the rainfall is as low as 200mm, there is need for irrigation facilities to increase the water content of the soil to the required 500 mm.
Unfortunately, Borno State which has capacity to produce at least, 30 percent of the wheat in these wheat producing states is facing the Boko Haram insurgency. But it can join the states as soon as the insurgents are uprooted from the state.
Nigeria currently imports about 4.4 million tons of wheat at a huge cost of about $1.5 billion. Demand for wheat is growing because Nigerians are major consumers of bread, pasta and wheat based food items in Africa. Increasing demand for imported wheat means that Nigeria will spend more foreign exchange to import it.
During the Structural Adjustment Programme in 1987, the importation of wheat was banned and an Accelerated Wheat Production Programe was launched to encourage local production. Farmers in the wheat producing states were given seed and other inputs including equipment at reduced rates. Consequently, wheat production in the country rose from 50,000 metric tons to 450,000 metric tons within three years.
Unfortunately, wheat milling companies in the country refused to buy the locally produced wheat thus leading to the failure of the Accelerated Wheat Production Programme. When the ban on the importation of wheat was lifted in 1990, farmers shifted to the production of other products and by 1991, local wheat production had reduced to 50,000 tons metric tons.
While Nigeria produced about 60,000metric tons, of wheat in 2016, global production was put at about 1.5 billion metric tons and local demand put at 4.6 million tons with about $1. 5 billion spent on the importation of the product. The implication of this is that Nigeria must accelerate local production of wheat so as to reduce the amount of foreign exchange it pays out to foreign suppliers of wheat which can be grown locally.
It is interesting that Nigeria grows hard wheat, which is heat tolerant and good for baking bread. Unfortunately, it has lower gluten content than the hard red winter wheat from the United States and Canada. Reports indicate that the Lake Chad Research Institute has been able to improve on the yield of the local wheat and the gluten content so that it can be adequate for baking bread.
Experts also say that Nigerian grains – rice, wheat and maize are eagerly sought for in the whole of the Sahel region comprising Niger, Chad, Mali, and Burkina Faso. This makes cross border trade in agricultural commodities to thrive in spite of the high insecurity in the Sahel region.
What this means is that increase in local production of wheat will translate to revenue for the country as Nigerian wheat is said to be in high demand in the Sahel region in Africa where there is demand for grains from Nigeria. When flour millers were not buying local wheat from the North, buyers were coming to Kano and other major markets in the Sahel Nigeria to buy the local wheat and took them across Nigeria’s porous borders to their countries.
However, following the introduction of improved high-yielding, early maturing hard wheat variety by the Lake Chad Research Institute and its partners in some local universities, farmers were able to increase the yields in their wheat farms from two tons per hectare to about six tons per hectare. The improved hard wheat is more suitable for bread baking. Consequently the Flour Millers Association has taken interest in the local wheat. The association also donated 50 threshers each valued at N1.4 million to the wheat farmers association to help boost production of wheat.
