Recent successes by some wheat farmers in Sudan courtesy of new heat-resistant wheat varieties that could transform the country’s food landscape, can also offer Nigeria some hints on how to improve sufficiency in the crop.
While Nigeria’s yield in wheat has hovered around 2 tonnes per hectare, and having a 4.64 million metric tonne deficit according to the Agricultural Promotion Policy (2016 – 2020), Sudanese farmers on the other hand are now expecting yields of up to 7 tonnes per hectare based on the new varieties.
With the deployment of new varieties such as Imam, Zakia and Bohain, Sudan’s wheat-growing areas have reported a rise in production to around 303,000 hectares up from 230,000 hectares in 2017. The high productivity and wheat area expansion witnessed during this season is expected to lead to a record high production expectation of around 0.85 million tons of wheat, covering up to 45 per cent of the national demand, according to Nahar Osman Nahar, Sudan’s Minister of Agriculture and Forestry.
The achievements of the wheat project have been attributed to the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) programme of the African Development Bank (AfDB). It has led to the roll out of technologically enhanced wheat varieties, in line with one of the Bank’s top High Five Priorities – Feed Africa.
At a field day event, technology-adopting farmers expressed their happiness with the impressive performance of heat-tolerant wheat varieties, and said they were expecting to realize yields of 4-6 tonnes per hectare this season, compared to 2tonnes per hectare before joining the Project. At Wadelneim village, a group of innovative farmers who adopted the heat-tolerant varieties Zakia and Imam, said they expected to achieve yields of 6-7 t/ha. They attributed their success to the hands-on training they received at the TAAT farm school.
Between 2012 and 2016, Sudan only produced 24% of the country’s national wheat demand, leaving it heavily reliant on imports of over 1.5 million tons of wheat each year.
In Nigeria, wheat importation accounted for N362.4 billion in 2018, representing 42.5 percent of the N852 billion officially captured to have been spent importing agricultural goods, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
“If you look at the derivatives of wheat, it is top line food for the younger, (upper and lower) middle income class, and that population is growing,” Ayodeji Balogun, country manager, AFEX Commodities Exchange Limited, told BusinessDay. “The population of people eating pasta will continue to increase, and every sachet of Noodles is a part of wheat. That number will keep growing and wheat is not a crop we have any efficiency in producing,” he added.
High yielding, heat-tolerant wheat varieties such as those being tried in Sudan may help Nigeria boost local wheat production, particularly in the northern parts of the country where it has been traditionally cultivated.
CALEB OJEWALE
