NSDC Launches Sugarcane Outgrower Programme To Boost Local Production

The National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) has launched the Sugarcane Outgrower Development Programme (SODP), a flagship inaugural aimed astatine accelerating section sugarcane cultivation and driving Nigeria person to self-sufficiency successful sweetener production.

Announcing the programme, the enforcement secretary/CEO of NSDC, Mr. Kamar Bakrin, said the inaugural is simply a cardinal constituent of the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan (NSMP II) and is designed to standard up home sugarcane production, trim the nation’s reliance connected imports, and stimulate inclusive economical growth, peculiarly wrong agrarian communities.

According to him, “The SODP is designed to boost section sugarcane cultivation, trim Nigeria’s dependence connected sweetener imports, and make opportunities for inclusive economical maturation by integrating outgrower farmers into the industry’s proviso chain. This programme volition complement the output of existing large-scale sweetener estates and assistance adjacent the nationalist proviso gap.”

Mr. Bakrin further described the inaugural arsenic a pioneering milestone successful the nation’s sweetener sector, saying it represents the archetypal clip a structured model volition formally integrate farmers astatine each levels into the nationalist sweetener worth chain.

“For the archetypal time, a structured outgrower improvement programme volition formally integrate farmers astatine each levels into the nationalist sweetener worth chain. This run is astir reaching each stakeholder, from large-scale operators to smallholder farmers, and ensuring that everyone has a just accidental to lend to Nigeria’s travel towards self-sufficiency successful sweetener production,” helium said.

He explained that the SODP volition empower participating farmers done a bid of strategical enactment measures, including guaranteed offtake agreements to guarantee dependable marketplace access, entree to prime seedcane and inputs, method support, structured grooming programmes, and the adoption of sustainable onshore and h2o usage practices aimed astatine improving productivity and biology management.

Providing further penetration into the programme’s implementation, the Head of Out-Grower Management astatine NSDC, Mrs. Lade Offurum, said the SODP volition prosecute 3 categories of farmers crossed the country, including agribusinesses and commercialized farmers cultivating betwixt 50 and implicit 500 hectares; farming cooperatives, who tin use arsenic organised clusters of betwixt 30 and 50 hectares; and idiosyncratic farmers oregon groups of friends consenting to jointly workplace clusters of 30 hectares and above.

Mrs. Offurum noted that the SODP is designed to promote inclusiveness by opening opportunities for some tiny and large-scale participants to lend to Nigeria’s sweetener worth chain, portion benefitting from entree to finance, inputs, and method enactment nether NSDC’s coordination framework.

She said, “The SODP is an important accidental for farmers, cooperatives, and agribusinesses to go portion of the nationalist sweetener accumulation drive. The Council is providing a wide model that ensures each subordinate large oregon small, has entree to the resources and enactment they request to succeed.”
She added that funny participants tin scope retired to the NSDC done their emai, website and telephone numbers
Mrs. Offurum besides announced that applications for information successful the programme volition adjacent connected November 21, 2025.

With the motorboat of the SODP, the NSDC said it is reinforcing its committedness to the objectives of the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan II (NSMP II), which targets the accelerated enlargement of section sugarcane production, attraction of caller investments into the sector, empowerment of farmers, and advancement of Nigeria’s imaginativeness for a globally competitory sweetener industry.