Annual Nigerian Trade Team to Survey HRW, HW Crops
Published: June 14, 2012
ARLINGTON, Virginia – Seven representatives from the top milling and food companies in Nigeria will visit Nebraska, Kansas and Texas June 16 to 26 to survey the current year’s hard red winter and hard white wheat crops.
“These trade team visits connect our Nigerian customers with the farmers that consistently produce the high quality wheat they expect and the grain industry responsible for supplying it,” said Gerald Theus, assistant regional director for the U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) Sub-Sahara African regional office in Cape Town, South Africa, who will accompany the team. “Participants gain firsthand knowledge of the current year’s crop and confidence in the U.S. grain marketing system.”
USW is sponsoring this trade team with support from the Nebraska Wheat Board, Kansas Wheat and Texas Wheat. During their visit, the Nigerian team will meet with farmers and industry officials to discuss the supply and quality of the current wheat crop, although the team will likely not see much wheat in Kansas fields due to the early harvest. The team will also discuss wheat research, including the future introduction and hoped-for traits of biotech wheat, in visits with Dr. Forrest Chumley at Heartland Plant Innovations and Kansas Wheat as the team tours the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center construction site.
Team members include representatives from the world’s second largest miller, Flour Mills of Nigeria, and other leading Nigerian flour milling companies. Flour Mills of Nigeria is the world’s largest importer of HW wheat, shipped in containers from its own export elevator in Corpus Christi, TX. The company also imports soft red winter, hard red winter, hard red spring and Desert Durum® wheat.
Nigeria is the only country that has imported all six classes of U.S. wheat. Flour milling is Nigeria’s second largest industry – behind oil – and the country buys up to 90 percent of its wheat from the United States. USW’s in-country presence through an office is Lagos and a long-term commitment to technical training and assistance have combined to build a top market for U.S. wheat in Nigeria, including the largest overall buyer in 2009/10. Based on USDA analysis, USW estimated that the loss of this market alone could reduce U.S. farm gate prices by 15 cents per bushel.
For more information, view the “U.S. Wheat and Nigeria: A Trade Success Story” video at http://bit.ly/mtuNcV or the “Export Market Development: A Vital Partnership with U.S. Wheat” video at http://bit.ly/mO62Le.
USW is the industry’s market development organization working in more than 100 countries. Its mission is to “develop, maintain, and expand international markets to enhance the profitability of U.S. wheat producers.” The activities of USW are made possible by producer checkoff dollars managed by 19 state wheat commissions and through cost-share funding provided by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. For more information, visit www.uswheat.org or contact your state wheat commission.
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2012 Nigerian Trade Team - Team Members
Wasiu Babatunde Idowu
Head of Division, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc.
Flour Mills of Nigeria (FMN) is Nigeria's largest miller and the world's second largest miller. FMN is Nigeria's only importer of soft red winter (SRW) and hard white (HW) wheat, the main importer of hard red spring (HRS) and produces pasta from Desert Durum. FMN is able to import small quantities of HW shipped in combination with hard red winter (HRW) from its own export elevator in Corpus Christi, TX. This is the result of contacts made by FMN's milling director during a Nigerian Trade Team visit in 2008. FMN is building four new mills in Nigeria, each with a capacity of 750 metric tons (MT) per day (3,000 MT per day total).
Benson Osaretin Evbuomwan
Director, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc.
Babatunde Olufemi Adebayo
Human Resources Manager, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc
Honeywell Flour Mills, which commissioned its first commercial scale mill in 1998, has an annual milling capacity of 600,000 MT. Recognizing an increased demand for instant noodles, Honeywell entered the instant noodle market in late 2008 with the commissioning of a noodle line at its new factory operating as Honeywell Superfine Foods, Ltd. (HSF). In 2008, Honeywell installed two more lines. At its full capacity of 90 MT of noodle production per day, the plant would use 30,000 MT of HRW annually.
Etim Ekanem
Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Noodles Ltd.
The Dangote Group’s first commercial scale mill was built in Lagos in 1998. Dangote operates five flour mills in Nigeria and has a total annual milling capacity of 2 million metric tons (MMT). In 2005, Dangote, believing that demand would continue to increase for pasta and noodles expanded its production capacity to 800 MT per day. In 2010/11, Dangote was one of the largest importers of HRW wheat in the world.
Jerry Omoruyi
Chief Operating Officer, Bendel Feeds and Flour Mills
Bendel Feeds and Flour Mills has an integrated operation of flour and feed milling. Bendel has a milling capacity of 300 MT per day for flour and 30 MT per day for semolina. After high quality wheat is processed into bread flour, valuable by-products from the flour mill and other production plants are processed into animal feed in the feed mill with a daily capacity of 380 MT per day.
Anil Patil, Factory
Manager, Dufil Prima Foods Ltd.
DUFIL Prima Foods is the leading noodle producer in Nigeria. DUFIL Prima Foods is a Singaporean company that started business operations in 1990 in Nigeria. DUFIL operates three production plants in Nigeria and continues to expand its operations. DUFIL is currently working to establish flour milling operations in Nigeria, which will supply flour to its noodles production plants.
Gerald Theus
Assistant Regional Director, USW/Cape Town
Gerald Theus is the assistant regional director for Sub-Sahara Africa, having been with USW since 1993. In addition to Theus, the USW Cape Town Office in South Africa is staffed by Regional Vice President Ed Wiese, a full-time flour milling consultant and three support staff. The USW Cape Town Office is responsible for USW market development programs in the 36-country Sub-Saharan Africa region. The region has three official languages and more than 3,400 local ethnic dialects. Prior to his current position, Theus was the producer/distributor for Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeds International in the Ivory Coast.
Olumuyiwa O. Talabi
Consultant, USW/Lagos
Working as a marketing consultant, Muyiwa Talabi operates the USW Lagos Office in Nigeria. Prior to joining USW in 1994, he worked as the agricultural specialist for USDA/FAS at the U.S. Embassy. Talabi has a deep knowledge of Nigerian business and culture, including degrees in public administration and international relations from the University of Lagos.
The U.S. Wheat Industry Partnership with Nigeria
Nigeria is the ultimate success story for the U.S. wheat industry, with a rapidly expanding flour milling industry that is undaunted by a lack of steady electricity, a transportation infrastructure that is yet to be created and national poverty beyond the understanding of the average American.
USW’s long-term presence in Africa, market research, and strategy targeting the local milling industry helped build this market and led to opening an office in Lagos, Nigeria in 2001. USW also works collaboratively with leading Nigerian millers to develop the local market for products made with U.S. wheat flour and semolina.
Nigeria has imported all six U.S. wheat classes. The United States dominates Nigeria’s wheat import market with close to a 90 percent market share, despite increased price competition from Canada and the Black Sea region. Nigeria was the United States’ largest wheat export market in the 2009/10 marketing year (June-May). Nigeria had purchased 123 million bushels (3.35 million metric tons) of U.S. wheat as of May 31 for the 2011/12 marketing year, ranking them as the third largest wheat buyer behind Japan and Mexico.
USW's in-country service office in Lagos and a long-term commitment to technical training and exchanges have combined to build strong Nigerian loyalty to U.S.-origin wheat. Yet, Nigeria has tremendous untapped potential for increased milling capacity and, along with continued purchases of hard red winter, an interest in increasing consumption of other U.S. wheat classes, particularly hard white.
That commitment to building lasting trade partnerships – coupled with USW’s long-standing presence throughout the African continent – has earned U.S. wheat a reputation for high quality and reliability.
U.S. Wheat Sales to Nigeria by Class 1,000 Metric Tons
Crop Year
(June - May) | HRW | HRS | SRW | SW | Durum | HW | Total |
2011 | 2,615 | 86 | 437 | 0 | 52 | 125 | 3,315 |
2010 | 2,871 | 134 | 444 | 0 | 98 | 115 | 3,661 |
2009 | 2,593 | 162 | 366 | 9 | 102 | 120 | 3,353 |
2008 | 2,095 | 55 | 382 | 0 | 81 | 50 | 2,664 |
2007 | 2,102 | 113 | 313 | 0 | 93 | 0 | 2,620 |
2006 | 1,884 | 104 | 392 | 0 | 78 | 0 | 2,458 |
2005 | 2,625 | 33 | 338 | 0 | 52 | 0 | 3,047 |
2004 | 2,190 | 74 | 257 | 0 | 40 | 0 | 2,562 |
2003 | 1,876 | 105 | 237 | 0 | 37 | 0 | 2,255 |
2002 | 1,409 | 100 | 133 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 1,654 |
| Data current through June 5, 2012 |
| NOTE: The Imports from U.S. by Class table is a summary of all wheat inspected for export by the Federal Grain Inspection Service. |
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