Challenges and strategies of wheat production in Nigeria amidst growing demands for wheat and wheat products

Abstract

The growing local demands for wheat products due changing taste of the population consistently create gap in local production resulted in huge  import, making wheat a strategic crop to the country. The objective of this study is to assess local production and import in Nigeria, challenges  devilling wheat production and strategies employed by various stakeholders to encourage local wheat production. The study uses secondary data  obtained from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to assess local production and import, while available literature was  reviewed for challenges devilling wheat production and the strategies employed to encourage local production by stakeholders. The study revealed  that, local wheat production is stagnated while import is increasing, and the value of import increased by 66.5% between 2016 – 2020. The  challenges of wheat production in Nigeria ranges from unfavourable climatic conditions, limited access to improved seed varieties, high cost of  production, inadequate irrigation infrastructure, insufficient funding systems, lack of a cohesive national strategy on wheat development, and the  unclear role of various stakeholders among others. The need for improved security, stable and consistent Government policies, encourage  mechanization, fostering collaborations among stakeholders, increased investment in research and training, expansion of irrigation land and  facilities and increase farmers access to credit are the major strategies suggested to boost local wheat production.