The National Sugar Development Council, NSD, has wrapped up the N664.12 million ($2.11 million) West Africa sugarcane development project started in 2010.
The project funded by the Common Fund for Commodities, CFC, and supervised by the International Sugar Organisation, ISO, was aimed at acquiring, evaluating and selecting high yielding and disease resistant cane varieties for wide adoption by smallholder sugarcane farmers in West African sub-region.
At the project completion dissemination workshop held in Abuja on Monday, October 10, the Project Coordinator, who was aso the immediate past Executive Secretary of NSDC, Latif Busari, said the CFC contributed $1.01 million while participating agencies contributed $447,697 to the project.
Busari said the total sum of money expended to date on the project was $1.47 million, being 69.7 percent of the sum approved for the project.
The Project Coordinator said 40 varieties of sugarcane were imported from Brazil, Mauritius, India, Sudan and Barbados for the project out of which the best varieties were identified for the region.
He said: “All the 40 test varieties have helped to enlarge the genetic pool and breeding germplasm available in participating countries.”
He said the project has enabled West Africa to develop capacity, enlarge cane gene pool and provide higher yielding cane varieties for growers.
