As a way of moving forward, this is a great news to Nigerians because the end of wheat importation will encourage our self own growth and making us a self producing wheat nation.
As Nigeria battles recession, the President Muhammadu Buhari led federal government is set to put an end to the whopping $880 million the country spends on wheat importation from Russia yearly.
According to the foreign affairs minister of state Hajiya Khadija Abba-Ibrahim, said Nigeria would henceforth invite Russians to help improve the country’s agricultural productivity.
Nigeria spent $880 million on wheat imports last year and has already spent $660 million this year. Wheat is in high demand in Nigeria as a raw material for bakery and feed mills. “We import a lot of wheat from Russia and we are telling Russia that this has to stop. “We want the Russian companies and farmers to come to Nigeria to show us how we can grow our agriculture sector with modern technology,” the minister was quoted by The Nation.
The value of wheat imported into Nigeria between January and September 2016 is $660m, according to data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics. Nigeria, in the first week of November, imported approximately 53 million metric tons valued at $7.8 billion.
Nigeria has stepped up wheat production and has hit 60,000MT, ranking it 61st out of 79 countries in global production. According to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria, the country spends $11 billion (N3.1tn) annually to import wheat, rice, sugar and fish. Nigeria’s food import was growing at an unsustainable rate of 11 per cent per annum.
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