Nigeria can stop $600m annual sugar importation – NACETEM

Nigeria imports 98 per cent of its annual sugar consumption, spending $600million on its importation even as large-scale agricultural production with innovative technologies can put an end to it, the National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM), has said.

NACETEM’s Director General, Dr Olusola Odusanya, who disclosed this Tuesday at the ongoing Nigeria-EU Innovation Days taking place in Lagos said Nigeria has the capacity to produce more than five times of sugar it consumes every year.

“It is sad that Nigeria imports 98% of the sugar it consumes, spending $600million to do this every year. But this will be stopped if we adopt large scale agricultural production with innovative technologies,” Odusanya said.

Speaking as one of the panelists at the event, the NACETEM DG said almost all Nigerians consume sugar daily and Nigeria could make enough foreign exchange if it focuses on large scale sugarcane production.

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He said: “Everyone of us might have consumed sugar this morning. But we import it instead of producing it on a large scale and export it. This will fetch us enough foreign exchange and create jobs in the country.”

He said technology innovation in agricultural production and other sectors will make large scale production easy and reduce Nigeria’s dependence on foreign goods.

Odusanya said NACETEM is currently awaiting the Federal Executive Council approval on some of its innovative policies including commercialisation of some research outputs.