Nigeria raises tariff on imported wheat

The Nigerian government has raised the tariff for imported wheat as part of its efforts to promote the substitution of wheat flour with 40 percent high quality cassava flour in bread.

The gesture is to encourage the substitution of wheat flour with high quality cassava flour.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Akinwunmi Adesina said this on Saturday in Abuja when he met with the owners of the four largest bakeries in the country.

The four bakeries are Butterfield, UTC, Leventis and Wilson Foods.

The minister said all flour mills and producers of high quality cassava flour who attained 40 percent substitution with high quality cassava flour, would receive 12 percent tax rebate.

He said with effect from March 31, 2012, the importation of wheat flour would be prohibited.

"All bakers will have within 18 months to move toward 40 percent substitution of high quality cassava flour," he added.

Adesina said the Federal Government had kick-started the transformative journey to make cassava bread available to every home in Nigeria with the four largest bakeries in Nigeria. "We must end business as usual approaches which have continued to sabotage our economy, because as wheat imports flood the nation, Nigerian farmers are driven further into poverty, while the farmers in the wheat exporting nations smile every day to bank," he said.

To achieve the goal of actualizing the 40 percent high quality cassava flour blending for bread, the minister said that the government would work with bakeries and the suppliers of high quality cassava flour to develop a commercially viable process for producing Nigerian bread.

According to him, the government would work with the private sector to establish 12 high quality cassava processing plants with an installed capacity of 240 tons per day.

He said the ministry was also working with research institutes to rapidly multiply and distribute cassava cuttings to millions of Nigerian farmers.

Adesina assured cassava farmers that they would find markets for their produce and more jobs would be created.

Source: Xinhua