Niger partners with Nigeria Sugar Council to revive sugar industry

Niger State, in collaboration with the Nigeria Sugar Development Council (NSDC), has taken a major step towards revitalizing Nigeria’s $2.5 billion sugar industry, which aims to promote food security and rural industrialization.

The partnership was formalized during a side event at the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Niger Foods signed an agreement with Uttam Sucrotech, a consortium of Brazilian and Indian sugar value chain experts.

The deal will see the development of 250,000 hectares of sugarcane fields and the establishment of six sugar and ethanol plants in Niger State over the next three years.

This initiative is part of the broader efforts by the Nigerian government to address food security, an issue prioritized by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, which declared a food security emergency last year. The new partnership is expected to revitalize Nigeria’s sugar industry, which has faced stagnation for decades.

Mr. Kamar Bakrin, the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Sugar Development Council, highlighted the industry’s decline since the 1960s when Nigeria, Brazil, and India were all in the process of developing sugarcane cultivation.

He noted that despite early progress, Nigeria’s sugar sector has since faltered, with cultivated land for sugarcane now covering less than 20,000 hectares.