It is amazing that Nigerians are not bothered about the fact that their presidential election has so far been totally devoid of policy. Can Obi or Kwankwaso please take the initiative and come up with a Nigerian Corn Plan

Ayo Akinfe

[1] When it comes to corn production, we are not doing too badly as we are the 11th largest maize producer in the world with an annual crop of about 11m tonnes

[2] However, our production costs are too high, making imports from countries like the US, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and India cheaper. If you are a Nigerian food processor, you will save on costs by importing cheaper maize. So, as a first step, the Nigerian government needs to reduce local production costs

[3] In 2016, Nigeria imported 650,000 tonnes of maize but this figure reduced to 400,000 in 2018 and 2019. If you are a flour mill or brewery for instance and Nigerian maize is selling for $20 a tonne but imported maize is going for $8 a tonne, surely you are better off importing, especially when the quality is the same, if not better

[4) Nigeria actually needs 15m tonnes of maize a year, so we are still not yet there in terms of quantity. So, our first step has got to be to develop hybrid high-yielding seedlings that can boost output by say a quarter within a year. We are clearly under-utilising the agriculture departments in our universities

[5] Our agriculture minister needs to make seedlings, pesticides and herbicides available to farmers at zero interest rates. Their crop will serve as collateral with the loans recovered upon harvest

[6] The minister also needs to leverage on the Fulani herdsman saga to build a huge animal feed industry. Just imagine if we had four mega cattle ranches in Nigeria with each surrounded by massive maize, sugarcane, cassava and soyabean plantations that grow produce for their animal feed compound factories

[7] I would actually set a target of matching Argentina’s 50m tonnes of maize output. Of this total, 10m tonnes would be targeted at the livestock and animal feed industry with poultry, cattle, goats and rams firmly in my sights

[8] One area where I would take no prisoners would be with processing and value-addition. I would offer private sector operators unbelievable tax holidays and breaks to open processing plants. My goal would be to have at least one maize processing plant in every one of our 36 states

[9] We would have a five-pronged line of attack - maize for animal feed, canned maize, maize flour, maize on the cob and maize as an industrial raw material. Our factories would be modular and able to produce all

[10] Our minister must then get automobile manufacturers to provide refrigerated trucks to help with collection on our rural areas. Each of our 774 local government areas must also have at least one refrigerated silo to keep our maize fresh