The gradual rise in income and urbanization in Nigeria has contributed to a drastic shift in dietary preferences of the people from coarse grains (maize, sorghum and millet) and tubers (cassava, sweet potato and yam) to wheat and wheat products. Nigeria has over the years witnessed some setbacks in local production like lack of planting materials, Government policy changes. The huge increase in consumption coupled with low productivity has resulted in importation of a large share. Local consumption in the country has reached 4.0 million tons while production stood at 100,000 tons in 2012. To reverse this trend I which huge foreign exchange is spent on wheat importation, the Wheat Value Chain (WVC) was put in place.
The mandate of the WVC is to increase productivity of wheat from 2.0 tons/ha in 2013 to 5.5 - 6.0tons/ha by 2017 and the national production from the current 100,000 tons to 1.5m tons by 2017 .Thereby reducing wheat importation by about 50%. This is expected to be achieved through fast and effective distribution of improved wheat varieties like Atila gan Atila which has an average yield of 4.0t/ha and the newly released varieties Reyna 28 and Norma Boulaug with average yield of 5.5-6.0t/ha
Nigeria has enormous potential and opportunities for Wheat production under irrigation in the Sudan/Sahelian ecological zone (12-14⁰) of the North East and North West. They include Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara and Plateau. Research is on going to introduce varieties that can profitably under rain fed conditions in Nigerian highlands of Gembu, Jos and Obudu.
No comments:
Post a Comment