Sugarcane is another crop that could easily generate more revenue for Nigeria than crude oil

Ayo Akinfe

(1) Brazil produces about 770m tonnes of sugarcane annually that generates about $36bn in revenue for the country’s economy

(2) As far back as 2011, 1.1m people were employed in the Brazilian sugarcane industry. Despite instances of poor conditions for workers, it is one of the highest paying agricultural sectors in Brazil, second only to the soybean industry

(3) India is the world’s second larger producer with an annual crop of about 350m tonnes annually. Between the two of them, Brazil and India account for about 60% of global production. I think it is time Nigeria joined the party

(4) At the moment, Nigeria only produces about 1.3m tonnes of sugarcane. This is less than fellow African nations like Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Congo Brazzaville, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Mauritius, Zambia, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt

(5) Apart from being processed to make sugar, the resulting molasses from sugarcane refining can be fermented to create an alcoholic beverage known as rum. Molasses are also a key animal feed ingredient

(6) Molasses can also be used to make vinegar, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products and solvents

(7) Other products produced from the molasses include butanol, lactic acid, citric acid, glycerol and yeast

(8) Also, the fibrous residue left after the juice is extracted is used as fuel in sugar factories as well as in the making of paper, cardboard, fiber board and wall board. In addition, the filter mud contains wax that when extracted, can be used to make polishes as well as insulation

(9) In these days of clean energy and the shunning of fossil fuels, ethanol is also widely used as a fuel to replace petroleum products

(10) I am waiting for one Nigerian governor to declare his state the sugarcane capital of the world. What I want to see is such a governor open the world’s largest sugarcane plantation with about five different processing plants that each produce sugar, ethanol fuel, alcoholic beverages, fibre board and pharmaceuticals