In an efforts to leverage from the Food Security Emergency declared by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s administration last year, Niger Foods in partnership with the Nigeria Sugar Development Council, has made a bold step to revive the 2.5 billion US dollars Nigeria’ sugar industry.
This was made known by the Niger governor’s Special Adviser on Digital Media and Strategy, Mr Abdullberqy Usman Ebbo, on his social media handle X.
He described the initiative as another bold step to promote food security and rural industrialisation of Nigeria, which would also boost agricultural production and better economy for all.
Ebbo noted that during a side event of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Niger Foods signed a deal with Uttam Sucrotech (a consortium composed of leading Brazil and India sugar value chain experts) to develop 250,000 hectares of Sugarcane fields and 6 Sugar/Ethanol plants in the state over the next three years.
According to him, the Niger Farms project, which will harness about 90,000 hectares on the shoulder of the recently flagged off Sokoto-Lagos Super Highway, would produce 2.5 million metric tones of sugar, 250 million litres of ethanol, and generate 300 Megawatts of electricity.
He added that it would also create 100,000 direct jobs, and 250,000 indirect jobs aside from the projected 750,000 outgrower participants.
Speaking at the event, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, praised the Niger State Government for its private sector approach to the development of agriculture.
He said through the creation of Niger Foods and also for the strategic choice of the two leading sugar producers in the world with a specialty for large scale cultivation (Brazil), and structured small scale out-grower programme (India).
Ebbo further quoted the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, who expressed the support of the ministry to the Niger government in the quest for large scale mechanised and integrated agriculture, lauded the strategic choice of coupling research and innovation to the development of the farms.
He said the development of the sugar value chain would birth a vibrant livestock industry in the state and the mixed cropping of sugar with Soybeans would ensure massive foreign earning.
Gov. Mohammed Umar Bago of Niger thanked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the unprecedented initiative for the socio-economic development of Nigeria.
Ebbo also quoted the governor saying the component of the Super Highways passing through the state would open 90,000 hectares of arable land, which would be part of the field to be used in the sugar project.
It would be recalled that Nigeria, Brazil, and India were in the 1960s leading developers of the sugarcane industry.
According to the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Sugar Council, Mr Kamar Bakrin, the Nigeria sugar industry has since stagnated with cultivated area of less than 20,000 hectares producing about 540,000 metric tones (about 3% of Nigeria’s current sugar demand).
This is compared to Brazil’s and India’s production of 41 million metric tones and 36 million metric tones, respectively.