Crown Flour Mill Limited, a subsidiary of Olam Nigeria, has re-echoed its promise to continue to collaborate with other stakeholders within the local wheat value chain in sustaining the socio-economic value proposition of the sector.

This assurance was given recently when a senior management team from CFM paid Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, a courtesy visit in Abuja recently.

Ashish Pande, managing director of Crown Flour Mill, represented by Damilola Adeniyi, corporate affairs manager, Olam Nigeria, who led the delegation explained that the rising consumption of wheat derivative foods in the country has stimulated further job opportunities at the production, processing, distribution, warehousing and retailing levels of the wheat value chain.

“Presently, the wheat value chain accounts for over 10.5 million jobs generated annually in Nigeria. This of course has placed the wheat value chain at the centre of the various economic development agenda of the federal government of Nigeria,” Pande said.

He explained that the flour millers continue to take bold developmental steps through scaled investments in critical areas including seed trial and research, training of smallholder wheat farmers, and funding of the various farming research institutes in the country to ensure that the current local production level of the wheat crop improves significantly.

“While these efforts have ensured that we keep providing affordable and quality food for the growing Nigerian population, they have also helped to increase the number of jobs being created for the active segment of the population,” he said.

“Overall, the investment efforts, which extend to capacity building initiatives for bakers, are beginning to yield positive results,” he added.

Stressing further on the importance of the local wheat value chain, Pande said that while prices of other major national staple foods such as rice, garri, yam, and beans have risen sharply by 3.2percent, 6percent, 5.3percent, and 13.4percent, respectively, in the past months, the prices of wheat derivative foods have been largely cushioned from the inflationary trend by local millers and bakers who continuously absorb the extra cost of production to keep feeding the population.