Worried by the low productivity in Nigeria, and much dependency on foreign products, an expert in Economics, Dr Gabriel Okeah, has advocated the need for the Federal Government to place sorghum as a focus crop under its Anchor Borrowers Programme.
This, he said, was going by the growing demand for, and usage of sorghum by many manufacturing companies in their production processes.
Okeah, who is a Senior Lecturer of Economics, at the Federal University, Wukari, Taraba State, made the call while interacting with journalists, shortly on arrival at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa.
He noted that government has not done enough diversification of the economy through agriculture.
According to him, it had become imperative for government to include sorghum as one of the critical agricultural commodities, noting that doing so would help reduce the pressure on foreign exchange from companies, thereby conserving Nigeria’s foreign reserves.
He stated that the inclusion would significantly boost and create more jobs, as many smallholder farmers would get more involved in its cultivation.
The university don, who speake on how promotion of Made-in-Nigerian goods could be sustained, explained that a lot of things could be achieved locally through production of sorghum.
“Many companies had invested heavily over the years in research and development in the sorghum value chain and this had delivered enormous gains, particularly with the local production of malted sorghum and malted syrup replacing the imported high maltose syrup since 2019.
“The pharmaceutical industry alone would save huge resources with the use of locally produced sorghum, rather than the importation of maltose that has alternative locally”, he said.

By: Corlins Walter