When the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) had its mid-term review in 2017, Sunti Golden Sugar scored 58 per cent in the targets set in the backward integration plan, including a number of projects, new sugar factories, land developed, land under cane, out-grower farms, sugar produced and job creation. It came ahead of Dangote, which scored 45.8 per cent and BUA, which scored 17 per cent.
NSDC in a post on its website noted according to the report’s verdict “the new estate and factory established by FMNL, Sunti, appears to be the key significant achievement under Phase 1 of BIP implementation.”
Commissioned last year by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Sunti Golden Sugar Estate (SGSE) Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Flour Mills of Nigeria (FMN) Plc, and comprises of a cane production area and sugar factory. The facility has been described as FMN’s single biggest investment (in Nigeria) since inception in 1960; a representation of its vision for agro-industrial transformation in the country.
Designed to have an output of 100,000 tons of sugar annually at full capacity, the facility occupies 15,100 hectares of land with a potential cane area of 5,000 ha out of which 3,000 hectares are currently under cultivation. Majority of the area is enclosed within a 35-kilometer dyke offering flood protection from the River Niger where the Sugar cane is cultivated under irrigation, making it an annual crop, and available for processing year-round.
The sugar production facility in Mokwa, Niger state, according to the company, currently employs 3,000 people mainly sourced from the surrounding communities. Once development is completed 10,000 people will be employed. CSR projects have been done installing drains, culverts and roads around host communities, including the 30-kilometer road from Mokwa.
“More than N50 billion has been invested in Sunti, making it the largest Agro-Allied investment in Nigeria so far,” said the company in its fact sheet during the commissioning.
Buhari had said in a speech during the commissioning, that “the world over, Sugar has been identified as a key commodity that is critical to national food security. Other than the development of local content, an investment of this size in the sugar value chain will not only stern the tide of importation of sugar and save foreign exchange, but enhance rural industrialization, create wealth and alleviate poverty.”
The Nigerian Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) notes that while Nigeria belongs to the International Sugar Organization whose member countries numbering 92 (at the time) represent 80 percent of total world sugar production, 81 percent of total world consumption, 64 percent of total sugar exports and 55 percent of sugar imports, Nigeria however, belonged to the category of sugar importers. When compared to her African neighbours, Nigeria is the least food – secure in terms of sugar as most of them produce substantial proportions of their sugar requirements, according to the NSMP.
However, the volume of sugar importation in Nigeria has now decreased every year since 2016 according to data from the NSDC, from 1,559,573MT to 1,286,729MT in 2017, and in 2018, further declined to 1,216,110MT.
With the incremental growth being recorded by some players in Nigeria’s sugar production, the country’s backward integration plan may pay off in the long run with investment’s such as the Sunti Golden Sugar Estate.
