Flour Mills Nigeria (FMN) Plc has reiterated its commitment to driving self-sufficiency in Nigeria through local content development.
The FMN’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Boye Olusanya, stated this in a statement in Lagos.
Olusanya said the group would continue to support initiatives aimed at boosting sel-sufficiency in the country.
“For us at FMN, our operations are not business as usual considering the fact that FMN shares a close affinity with Nigeria, thus is aligned in the process of driving self-sufficiency in Nigeria through local content development.
“Currently, our five key value chains are grains; oils & fats; sugar; feeds & proteins, and cassava starches, and we have consistently made significant investments in the development of these value chains to reduce our dependency on imported raw materials.
“For oil and fats, we have Premium Edible Oil Products Ltd (PEOPL) – one of the largest new-generation edible oil complexes in Africa as our downstream business in the oils and fats value chain producing bottled vegetable oils, margarine, and spreads.
“PEOPL extracts premium soya oil from soybeans supplied by our Kaboji Farm and from aggregated supplies from up to 100,000 third-party farmers in North-Central and North-West Nigeria.
“After oil extraction, the remaining soybean meal is used by our Premier Feed Mill (PFM) operations in Ibadan and Calabar where it is converted to poultry and aqua feed,” he said.
Olusanya said the company ventured into the agribusiness space in 1978 with the
acquisition of a 10,000-hectare farm in Kaboji, Niger State.
This, he said, was part of an investment and expansion strategy designed to create value in the supply chain and reduce the reliance on imported raw materials.
He noted that the group following the investment had made substantial investments in the primary processing of locally grown soybean, palm fruit, cassava, maize, sugar cane, sorghum, and the storage, aggregation, and distribution of locally sourced grains.
Olusanya added the group takes the lead in propagating the National Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) Agenda through its Sugar Cane Outgrower Scheme and by making significant investments in sugar.
“FMN has participated in the NSMP and Backward Integration Plan (BIP) since its inception in 2012 through its subsidiary Golden Sugar Company situated on the Niger River in Niger state.
“At Sunti, the company has an area of 22,000ha on which a 15,000-hectare sugar estate is being developed.
“More than N73 billion has already been invested to establish the sugar estate of 3,500ha of irrigated sugar cane and a Sugar Factory with a 3,000 tons per day milling capacity.
“The factory is the only one constructed under the NSMP and producing sugar today. Once the development is complete 150,000 tonnes of sugar will be produced per year,” he said.
Olusanya said the company would continue to drive local content development and innovation through its Corporate Social Responsibility projects.
He said the group in partnership with George Coumantaros Foundation, the American Farm School and Perrotis College in Greece awarded postgraduate scholarship worth over N33 billion to two deserving Nigerian students.
“The goal is to drive excellence in education and upskilling for players in the food and agro-allied sector, especially in the areas of industry-based technological advancements,” Olusanya said.
On the group’s sugar investment, Olusanya said “FMN, through its subsidiary, Golden Sugar Company (GSC), initiated progressive agricultural interventions toward driving sugar self-sufficiency in Nigeria and introduced the outgrower programme – a transformative and innovative agricultural intervention designed for local capacity development.
He noted that hundreds of sugarcane farmers under the out-grower scheme were trained and some were sent to Malawi for further upskilling.
“The Golden Sugar Company (GSC) by FMN will enable Nigeria to attain self-sufficiency in sugar production by growing the required local capacity to meet the demand for sugar which will stem the tide of unbridled importation of sugar and its by-products.
“As an organisation that is a source of livelihood for millions of Nigerian families, it is our key mandate to continue to progressively and sustainably feed the nation, everyday,” he said.
