Bayer Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of the Bayer Group, has announced its plan to hold the third edition of its annual Nigeria Maize conference. This year’s conference, which will be virtual, is tagged “Much More Maize” and is scheduled for April 22, 2021.
Speaking ahead of the conference, Temitope Banjo, the country sales manager, Bayer Nigeria Limited, says the Nigeria Maize conference is an initiative to bring together stakeholders in the maize agricultural value chain, to deliver innovative solutions that would help Nigerian farmers maximise their farm yields and secure their harvests from devastating disease and pests.
According to Banjo, “Nigeria is yet to reach its full potentials in terms of maize productivity, for example where a hectare of farmland in Egypt can yield up to 7 metric tonnes per hectare, a farm of the same size in Nigeria only produces around 1.8 metric tonnes per hectare which is one of the lowest among the top 10 maize producers in Africa.”
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He went on to say that even though Nigeria is presently the largest producer of Maize in Africa, the country is still not able to meet up with its domestic and industrial needs for the crop.
He stated that the challenges with maize production in Nigeria are mainly due to poor agronomic factors and the use of bad seeds during planting and cultivation, and there is a need to educate our farmers on how they can increase the productivity and profitability of their farms, hence the theme for this year’s conference.
Commenting on how Bayer intended to address the maize production challenges in Nigeria, the Managing Director of Bayer Nigeria, Sefihait Kone explained that Bayer has a suite of products which is called the Bayer “Much More Maize” toolkit, specially put together to help farmers protect their crops and boost productivity of their farms from the planting phase through the harvesting stage.
