By Dayo Johnson

The National Sugar Development Council said that plans are underway to enable Nigeria generate annual revenue of about N450 billion on Sugarcane as from 2020.

Executive Secretary of the Council Alhaji Usman Bello said this at a sensitization workshop for stakeholders in the Sugar sub_sector with the theme: “Sugar sector contributions to the 20:2020 Vision: Nigerian Sugar Master Plan Strategy” held in Akure .

Bello noted that the sugar sub_sector is also to produce158m tones of ethanol valued at $70m annually which would help generate 400 mega watts of electricity.

Continuing he pointed out that” the sugar sub_sector would be able to produce 1.6m tones of animal feed and employ 115, 000 professionals both skilled and unskilled labour with the full implementation of the Master Plan.
Bello said that “all sugar refineries in the country would henceforth use 70 percent sugarcane while all firms that used sugar as their major source of raw material would source them locally.

Since sugar business is rural based, Bello pointed out that most rural communities where they are cited would witness unprecedented  transformation that would boost infrastructural development.

According to hi”m certain strategies had been devised by the council and packaged into the NSDC document, which if well implemented would make sugar better alternative revenue for the country after crude oil.

He said the council had encourage the planting of large scale sugarcane around sugar processing firms by granting loans to the farmers and ensuring that their farm produce are procured by the companies at competitive prices.

Apart from this, he said the council had ensured that tube wells were drilled around sugarcane estates and farms since the crop needed much water to grow well.

Bello added that the NSDC was facilitating loans for sugar firms and outgrowing farmers from the Sugar Sector Development Fund, the account, which he added was domiciled with the Bank of Industries.

The council he noted was also procuring sugar processing equipments for farmers’ groups while rural roads that led to their farms were being regularly graded.

According to him “We have also introduced sugarcane nursery farms where high yielding varieties of sugarcane could be supplied to out growers and sugar companies”