Flour millers canvass removal of 15% levy on imported wheat
Flour Millers belonging to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) want the Federal Government to remove 15% levy placed on imported wheat.
According to a document obtained from MAN, entitled ‘Sector Specific Inputs to the Budget Memorandum for 2017’, flour millers say that there is inadequacy of cassava flour meant to be included in flour.
They say removal of wheat tariff will increase employment generation capacity of the sector.
The immediate past administration encouraged flour millers to include 10 percent of cassava in wheat flour. However, this was greeted with mixed reactions from industry players who expressed scepticism over the quality of locally processed cassava.
But companies like Yale Foods have bought into the policy, using cassava flour for bread production.
In 2013, Akinwumi Adesina, the then minister of agriculture, said for the purpose of the cassava flour project, the BoA had provided credit facility of N1 billion to cassava farmers and processors. Adesina added that the bank would disburse the N2.4 billion facility to cassava growers and processors at five per cent interest rate.
In 2014, the minister said the High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) policy for baking bread saves the nation N127 billion annually.
Nigeria is world’s largest cassava producer, but it is not maximising this potential.
Nigerian brewers have also continued to import barley, rather than tap into the possibility of producing beer with cassava, which is currently thriving in Mozambique, Uganda, Ghana and South Africa. Since 2011 when SABMiller launched cassava beer in Mozambique, the brewer has sold 100 million bottles, while getting cassava from smallholder farmers, BusinessDay findings show.
Nigerian brewers can sell much more than this in four years, given Nigeria’s demographic advantage. By so doing, they improve and develop the cassava value chain, while empowering local farmers and earning foreign exchange by exporting the beer beyond Africa, say experts.
Many analysts say Nigeria is still lagging in the value chain, stressing the need to provide funding that will enable farmers to acquire processing equipment.
According to Emmanuel Ijewere, chairman, Best Foods Group, what is needed in agriculture value chain is investment.
In a recent interview with BusinessDay, Segun Adewunmi, president, Nigeria Cassava Growers Association (NCGA), said government is ignorant of the opportunities in the cassava value chain.
“Nigeria currently imports over 95 percent of industrial starch used in the country. Currently, industrial starch sells for over N200, 000 per ton which means we can generate 10 trillion naira annually from cassava production,” Adewunmi said.
He said many cassava processing industries in the country have collapsed due to inadequate, irregular, unaffordable all-year round supply of cassava.
ODINAKA ANUDU