The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has saved Nigeria from the global shortage of wheat production which is as a result of Russia invasion of Ukraine. It is like Mr. Godwin Emefiele had a vision about Russia invasion of Ukraine and the project of wheat production is not a political project..
The Federal Government has commenced the harvesting of wheat from its first dry season wheat farm in Papa community, Nafada Local Government Area, Gombe State. It said about 1,000 metric tonnes of wheat would be harvested from the 200 hectares farm in the state to shore up the country’s wheat production and help ameliorate the impact in the reduction of wheat imports caused by the Russia-Ukraine war. Nigeria and many other nations import a large percentage of wheat from Ukraine and the war in the foreign country has drastically reduced the supply from that part of the world.
But the Federal Government through its National Agricultural Land Development Authority announced on Friday said that it had started harvesting the commodity from its dry season wheat farm in Gombe, adding that an additional 1,000MT was expected from other states. The statement stated that youths and women were seen harvesting, threshing and bagging the produce when the NALDA team visited the farm.
Wheat is the second highest contributor to Nigeria’s food import bill, mounting pressure on foreign reserves. Over $2 billion was spent yearly on the importation of over 5.0 million metric tonnes of wheat. According to Nigeria’s data agency, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria imported N898.2 billion worth of wheat in nine months that ended September 2021. The top origins of wheat in Nigeria in 2021 included the USA, N194.2 billion; Canada, N136.4 billion, Russia, N124 billion, Lithuania, N122.3 billion and Latvia, N115.9 billion.
With the Russia/Ukraine conflict’s intensity and duration uncertain, “the likely disruptions to agricultural activities of these two major exporters of staple commodities could seriously escalate food insecurity globally when international food and input prices are already high and vulnerable,” said Qu Dongyu, director-general of the Rome-based FAO. It was gathered that the price of a bushel of wheat has risen by 5.7 per cent to $9.347 following the escalation of the conflict.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) flagged-off the first ever rain-fed wheat programme in the country last year, which aims to slash the importation of the commodity by 60 per cent in two years. The initiative is also expected to save the country $2 billion annually in foreign exchange.
According to the CBN, the programme will benefit over 150,000 farmers and would be implemented in 15 states of the federation for a start. The CBN has also set aside over N5. 7 billion loan to 10,000 farmers to encourage dry season wheat farming in Bauchi State with 4,500 farmers benefited so far in the state.20 Dec 2021
Speaking in Jos, Plateau State, during the unveiling ceremony for the Nigerian Brown Revolution, which is a central bank wheat value chain intervention, CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, said following the successes in the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), the apex bank decided to extend the gains recorded in the rice and maize value chains to wheat production. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has intervened to bail farmers out of the challenge of inadequate seeds, adjudged as the most critical input retarding wheat production in the country.
Farmers, researchers and industrialists have constantly faced production impediments, including poor quality of inputs and inadequate infrastructure. The country produces less than five per cent of the yearly needs, putting pressure of foreign exchange as over 90 per cent of wheat consumed locally is imported.
The US Department of Agriculture’s data says Nigeria produces about 60,000 metric tonnes, and yearly demand stands at between 4.5 and 5.0 million tonnes. To change the gloomy production data and decelerate the pressure on the economy, the CBN recently reiterated its resolve to face challenges in wheat production by making inputs available to farmers.
It will be recalled that a former Minister of Agriculture and President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, recently said at a ministerial retreat organized for the executive council of the Federal Government that by stopping the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) in 2015, critical inputs were disrupted not only to wheat but also to rice and sorghum farmers.
The CBN Director, Development Finance Department, Philip Yila Yusuf, disclosed this in Abuja at the Wheat Conference and Stakeholder Engagement, with the theme: ‘Improving and Sustaining the Wheat Value Chain Development in Nigeria.’He said having realised the importance of wheat to food security move of the country, the bank’s focus on its value chain for 2021/2022 dry season planting became imperative after sustainable progress had been made across the rice and maize value chains.
Furthermore, he estimated that only 63,000MT of wheat, out of the 5-6 million MT consumed annually, is produced locally, noting that the CBN intervention became critical due to its high demand in Nigeria and prevailing shortages. 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 varieties in-country and improve general productivity.
Russia’s status as the largest exporter of wheat in the world is causing disquiet in many countries following its military incursion into Ukraine. Currently, wheat is one of the most consumed grains in the world. It is also used for the production of noodles, pasta, cakes and other confectioneries. Recent reports suggest that the conflict has already driven food prices across the globe, the Food Agricultural Organisation (FAO) warned last Friday.
According to the trade data provided by the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), the world traded $44.1 billion worth of wheat in 2019, representing 0.24 per cent of the global trade. The data further showed that Russia exported $8.14 billion worth of wheat and thus emerged as the largest wheat exporter in 2019.
The United States exported $6.94 billion worth of wheat, while Canada exported $5.97 billion worth of wheat to occupy the second and third positions respectively. And France with $4.54 billion in wheat exports, and Ukraine with $3.11 billion, completed the list of the top five wheat exporters across the world in 2019.
According to the data, 31.3 per cent of the wheat used in Egypt in 2019 came from Russia. Same year, Turkey met 17 per cent of its wheat needs from Russia, while Bangladesh and Nigeria sourced 6.4 per cent and 4.8 per cent of their wheat imports from Russia. Other African countries that imported wheat from Russia in 2019 were Sudan, 2.5 per cent, Kenya and Tanzania, 1.3 per cent respectively.
Inwalomhe Donald writes via [email protected]
