For a country that uses about 1.8 million tonnes of sugar every year, Nigeria’s dependence on imported supplies represents both a major economic outflow and a significant opportunity for domestic production.
The country currently spends roughly $1 billion annually importing sugar, but a new push by the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) is seeking to redirect more of that value into Nigerian farms, processing facilities and rural economies.
Under the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan 2.0, the Council is working towards domestic production of approximately 2 million tonnes of sugar, enough to meet local demand while creating room for growth.
The strategy is being supported by two major financing initiatives: a N10 billion Sugar Project Acceleration Fund established with the Bank of Industry (BOI), and a $1 billion Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Finance (EPC+F) agreement with Chinese industrial giant SINOMACH.
NSDC Executive Secretary, Mr. Kamar Bakrin, outlined the strategy during a courtesy visit by the Abuja Chapter of the Chartered Institute of Directors (CIoD), stressing that the next phase of the sector’s development will depend heavily on turning existing policies and investment commitments into operating projects.
The N10 billion fund is intended to tackle one of the challenges that often prevents large agricultural projects from reaching investors: the preparation stage.
Through the facility, developers of greenfield sugar projects can receive technical, financial and advisory support for feasibility studies, project preparation and other pre-investment activities. The objective is to develop credible, investment-ready projects that can attract larger financing.
The facility is not a grant programme but operates as a structured, performance-driven initiative with defined eligibility requirements and deliverables.
This preparation is expected to create a pipeline of bankable sugar projects capable of accessing the $1 billion EPC+F arrangement with SINOMACH, giving the sector a potential pathway from project conception to large-scale development.
The NSDC is also engaging Afreximbank and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to speed up the development of sugar estates across the country, widening the institutional and financial support available to the industry.
Nevertheless, increasing investment alone will not deliver the production target. The Council is also tightening the way companies participating in the Backward Integration Programme (BIP) are monitored.
Companies receiving sugar import quotas are expected to make verifiable investments in local production, and the NSDC plans to use satellite imagery alongside field inspections to independently track activities and production across project sites.
The approach is designed to strengthen accountability and ensure that incentives linked to import quotas translate into measurable expansion of Nigeria’s domestic sugar capacity.
Bakrin acknowledged that implementation has been one of the industry’s longstanding challenges.
“We do not lack policy. What we have struggled with is world-class execution,” he said.
The Council’s ambitions extend beyond producing more of the sugar Nigerians consume. Sugarcane itself offers multiple industrial applications that could deepen the value generated from each hectare cultivated.
According to Bakrin, the crop can be processed into ethanol and animal feed and can also support electricity generation, making sugarcane relevant to Nigeria’s wider bio-industrialisation agenda.
“We have been blessed with a crop that is one of the most generous God has ever made,” he said.
The development model is also expected to give smallholder farmers and host communities a greater role in the emerging value chain. Through the Sugarcane Outgrower Development Programme, sugar estates are required to allocate land for outgrowers and invest in initiatives that support their host communities.
That structure could allow large estates and smaller farmers to participate within the same production ecosystem, while spreading the economic benefits of expanding sugar production beyond the boundaries of industrial plantations.
The NSDC is equally looking to strengthen governance across the sector. Bakrin urged the Chartered Institute of Directors to contribute to improved corporate governance standards for sugar estates, mills and outgrower companies, with the aim of supporting the long-term sustainability of investments.
The sugar strategy is unfolding alongside efforts to improve agricultural financing and productivity. The federal government recently approved a N250 billion facility for the Bank of Agriculture to extend credit to smallholder farmers at single-digit interest rates.
The programme is expected to support mechanisation, raise productivity, improve market access and ease financing constraints confronting farmers across the country.
Taken together, the measures point to an effort to reposition sugar from an import-dependent commodity into a Nigerian industrial value chain. If the planned projects move from feasibility and financing into actual production, the opportunity could extend beyond replacing imports to include farming, processing, energy, manufacturing, employment and rural development.
With a domestic target of about 2 million tonnes against current annual consumption of 1.8 million tonnes, Nigeria is seeking not merely to produce more sugar, but to build the capacity to meet its own demand from within the country.
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