PROSPECTS OF SUGAR PRODUCTION AND IMPORTS: MEETING THE SUGAR DEMAND OF NIGERIA BY YEAR 2020

The trend of sugar cane production and refined sugar imports for the period 1960-2010 were analysed and forecasted to year 2020. Results show that sugar cane output will rise to 2.8m tonnes from about 88 thousand hectares of land by year 2020. The total refined sugar that will be available from production and import is about 720 thousand tonnes but with Nigerian population growing at the rate of 2.27%, potential demand for refined sugar will rise to 1.6B tonnes by the year 2020 creating a deficit of over 1.5B tonnes. This require a drastic action which if not taken will lead to sugar crisis. Three major options are advocated in this paper i.e. hectarage expansion, massive funding of research to improve sugar cane production technology such that yield will rise to 150 tonnes per hectare and import expansion. Of the three options, only increase funding of research will encourage local technology and save Nigeria foreign exchange of more than $100B annually and will make Nigeria self-reliant in sugar production by the year 2020 and facilitate the emergence of Nigeria as a developed nation.