From Reuters:

Nigeria plans a huge jump in domestic sugar production over the next six years to cut dependence on imports and satisfy growing demand from a population with rising incomes but still faces major challenges such as poor infrastructure.

The government is eager to make Nigeria self-sufficient in sugar by 2020 to cut its $11 billion-a-year food import bill and has announced plans to spur investment in domestic output.

It is targeting annual production of 1.7 million tonnes of sugar by 2018, a huge increase from the paltry 40,000 tonnes produced in 2012/13, a report by Ecobank said.

Sugar production in Africa’s second biggest economy has been neglected over the past half century as investors poured money into the oil industry, but the government’s eagerness to revive the farming sector and reduce the country’s dependence on oil could bode well for sugar.

“Nigeria has abundant natural resources actually to support sugar growth, but it was abandoned down the line because Nigeria had too much (focus on) oil,” Abdullahi Sule, Managing Director of Dangote Sugar Refinery, told an International Sugar Organization (ISO) conference.

Nigeria consumed about 1.2 million tonnes of sugar in 2012/13 and consumption is expected to reach 1.5 million tonnes by 2020, according to the Ecobank report.

Written by Julia Fioretti | Read more at Reuters