Nigerian farmers can tap into the fast booming local and global sorghum market to create wealth and earn foreign exchange as local manufacturers are increasing their usage of the crop and the heat up of the US/China trade war.
Brewers in the country are now using a larger percentage of the crop in place of barley for brewing beer and malt drinks owing to the central bank’s foreign exchange policy on food imports.
They are now making huge investments in sorghum malting plants in the country owing to their hunt for local substitute in place of barley malt and barley concentrates.
As a result, billions of dollars that would have been spent on importation of barley malt and concentrates will be retained for the growth and development of the Nigerian economy.
“A lot of farmers are now going into sorghum farming because the brewery industry is buying so much from us now than before,” Adamu Bature, secretary, Sorghum, Millet Farmers Association of Nigeria, told BusinessDay in a telephone response to questions.
“Brewers make use of 70 percent of sorghum as by-product for brewing beer and malt. Nigeria Breweries fayrouz is 100 percent sorghum. This shows the huge industrial potentials of the crop. Also, it serves as raw material for biscuit and noodles production,” Bature said.
He noted that the crop is grown in all the northern states in the country.
Nigeria is the natural habitat for many varieties of sorghum and the world’s second-largest producer and supplier of the crop, churning out 11 million metric tons per annum while demand is put at 12.5 million MT, leaving a gap of 1.5 million MT, according to data obtained from the Federal Ministry Agriculture.
“Nigeria Breweries funded a sorghum research at the institute and we developed a sorghum variety with high malting properties which can be used in place of barley as by-product for brewing beer and malt. So most brewers are increasing their local sourcing for sorghum,” said Ibrahim Umar Abubakar, director, Institute for Agricultural Research, IAR Zaria.
According to the institute, two varieties of sorghum with malting properties have been released.
“The CSR03H and CSR04H are the two varieties we developed with high malting properties and have been released officially,” said Daniel Aba, a sorghum breeder at the Institute for Agricultural Research, Zaria.
Sorghum is a grass of east African origin, which is mainly grown in the northern part of the country. It is the 4th important cereal after wheat, rice and maize and is used as a maize substitute for livestock feeds because of their similar nutritional values.
“The stalk from sorghum can be used as livestock feeds while the grains are used for poultry feeds production. It has high protein content than maize,” said Aba.
Like shea nuts, sorghum has the potential to be a huge export earner for the country, but years of low investment, lack of government support and natural vagaries have limited the huge potentials.
“I have three brewery firms I sell my sorghum to immediately after harvest. The demand is getting higher since the dollar volatility as most of them want to source locally and now substituting sorghum in place of barley,” Liman Mohammed, a sorghum farmer in Borno said
“Currently a metric ton of sorghum sells for N170, 000 as against N130, 000 sold four months ago. The price keeps rising owing to the increase in demand,” Mohammed said.
Currently, most of the brewery firms in the country are supplying free inputs such as improved seeds varieties to farmers and technical support in the production of sorghum in the country.
Also, since the imposition of a temporary tariff on US imports by the Chinese government, China’s importers of US grains such as sorghum and soybeans have begun looking at other markets for the importation of the crops.
Audu Ogbeh, former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, while highlighting the opportunities in Nigeria’s agricultural sector during the 2018 BusinessDay’s Agribusiness conference held in Lagos, said that the China’s government is making a demand for Nigeria’s soybeans and sorghum.
Ogbeh had stated that the Chinese government was requesting for 2,000 tons of soybeans and sorghum.
This means that the market for the crop is huge and growers can take advantage.
Josephine Okojie
