Nigeria Can Strengthen Economy via Wheat Trade Liberalization

Nigeria remains a huge export market for wheat with export value of U.S. wheat averaging $1 billion, about 85 percent share of the wheat market. The high demand is mostly pressured by increasing consumption of wheat flour-based products and insufficient domestic substitutes. The Government of Nigeria (GON) efforts at becoming a major wheat-producing country since 1959 have still not been attained and domestic wheat production has remained at 50,000 metric tons out of 3.7 million metric tons it consumes per year. The country’s wheat milling capacity is about 8.0 million tons with capacity utilization at approximately 50 percent. Although not permitted, wheat flour and other wheat-based products from Nigeria worth much more than 400,000 metric tons are also informally exported to its neighboring countries while the GON have continued to introduce measures such as high levies, to cut back on wheat imports. With the country’s current position in wheat milling within Sub-Sahara Africa, Nigeria would better grow its economy by dropping wheat import levies and growing its export market Uche M. Nzeka, Agricultural Marketing SpecialistRuss Nicely, Regional Agricultural Counselor for wheat-based products in the region.