Olam introduces a heat tolerant wheat variety in Nigeria

Nanyang Business School students visit Olam Crown Flour Mill in Nigeria, July 2023.

Singapore-based agribusiness company Olam Agri has released a new heat-tolerant and early-maturing durum wheat variety in Nigeria which is suited for cultivation during the dry harmattan season. This development could enable Olam’s Nigerian subsidiary, Crown Flour Mills – one of the country’s largest wheat millers and a major pasta producer – to shift from relying on imports to sourcing locally grown wheat.

The initiative stems from Olam’s Seeds for the Future project, launched in 2021 to develop and promote wheat seed varieties suited to Nigeria’s unique topographic and climatic conditions, and address other barriers to achieving self-sufficiency in wheat production. The development of this new wheat variety was informed by a survey of farmers in four villages in Northern Nigeria, where most of the country’s wheat is grown. Farmers here found wheat less profitable than rice. Existing wheat seed varieties had long growing cycles that delayed the second rice planting season, and many struggled to finance wheat planting before selling their rice harvest.

To address these issues, Olam partnered with the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas to develop the new high-yielding Crown wheat variety. This variety matures early, allowing farmers to plant rice in time for the next growing season. Preliminary tests also confirmed its suitability for pasta production.

The rollout of the programme will begin this December, with ten farmers receiving 100kg of the seeds. Alongside agronomic training, the programme will provide financial support to help farmers multiply the initial seeds into three tonnes of certified seeds. These will then be further scaled to 30 tonnes through community-level cultivation and eventually commercialised for neighbouring farming communities.

Nigeria aims to reduce its heavy reliance on wheat imports, which meet over 90% of its annual demand of approximately 6.5m tonnes. In 2023, durum wheat imports were valued at nearly US$2bn, with Poland, Latvia, Canada, Lithuania, and Russia among the top suppliers. Efforts to boost domestic wheat production are particularly pressing as the weakening naira, has made imports increasingly costly.

References

‘Female cooperatives as drivers to boost the wheat value chain in Nigeria: Report for period June 2021 to June 2022’, Olam Agri, 15 September 2022

‘Olam Agri launches Seeds for the Future Foundation and education grant in Nigeria’, Olam Agri, 25 October 2022

‘Nigeria’s push to grow wheat hobbled by climate and conflict’, Voice of America, 23 July 2023

‘Nigeria spends N970.22 billion on wheat import in 12 months - NBS’, Nairametrics, 06 December 2023

‘Nigeria plans 70% wheat self-sufficiency’, Punch, 02 October 2024

‘Nigerian naira plumbs fresh lows to dollar as liquidity dwindles’, Bloomberg, 07 November 2024

‘Why we need to embrace large-scale wheat production’, Daily Trust, 21 November 2024

‘Olam Agri records significant milestone in wheat variety’, Olam Agri, 26 November 2024

‘List of supplying markets for a product imported by Nigeria product: 1001 Wheat and meslin’, International Trade Centre, Accessed 27 November 2024