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Nigeria to establish malt factories in Yola and Zaria
The Nigerian Government is to establish two malt factories in Yola, Adamawa State and Zaria in Kaduna State.
The director, National Agricultural Seed Council, Olusegun Olatokun, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday.
Job creation
According to him, this is expected to employ more than 24,000 youths in the North East and North West political zones.
“This is because government is concentrating on the area where the product is grown,” he explained.
Olatokun, the director, Seed Information, Data Management and Capacity Building, said that the malt drink to be produced from the factories would be known as “Dawa Malt” because it would be produced from sorghum.
Sorghum Transformation programme
To guarantee a successful implementation, the government has commenced sorghum and rice seeds production under a programme tagged “Sorghum Transformation”.
“The programme focuses on improved production of sorghum, use of malt for several food and drink products and strengthening of the seed companies for the production of hybrid sorghum,” he said.
Other benefits from the programme
The director reiterated that President Goodluck Jonathan had set a time limit to move the programme forward for accelerated impact on the citizenry.
He further explained that the programme would target the extraction of ethanol from sorghum.
In his words, “from sorghum, we will be able to extract ethanol for fuel even though it would be used mainly for malt production”.
Besides, “The same product can be used to increase milk production for lactating mothers and we want also to re-introduce school drinks in schools, but instead of using milk, malt drink will be served,” he stressed.
Economic development
Processing companies would be involved in the programme which targets 1.2 million tonnes of hybrid sorghum and at optimum capacity; the factories would produce about four to five tonnes of sorghum annually.
“We will be looking at seed and seed dissemination, sorghum production and processing, marketing, capacity building, database facilities, monitoring and evaluation as we work towards getting to our target,” Olatokun said.
Economic analysts have noted that a successful implementation of the programme would ease unemployment challenges in Nigeria, impact positively on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the economy at large.
NAN/Emma/Williams
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