Welcome!

Welcome to the blog of the Maize Value Chain of the Federal Department of Agriculture of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development FMARD, Abuja, Nigeria. This blog focuses on maize production in Nigeria, particularly the activities the Federal Government through the Maize Value Chain.

Maize in Nigeria

 Maize is an important cereal crop which has assumed the status of a cash/food crop in the country. The versatility of maize is used for grifts, flour, breakfast cereal, baby food, animal feed and the case of processing and transportation has been attractive to several stakeholders and entrepreneurs. Maize is grown all over the country but concentrated in Oyo, Kwara, Niger, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Bauchi, Plateau, Taraba, Gombe and Adamawa. It can be grown all year round provided there is availability of water.

Maize plays a predominant role in the farming systems, and diets of millions of Nigerians. Furthermore, system productivity using the maize-soybean rotation is essential to maintaining the natural resource base of the maize production environment. A key goal of the present Agricultural Transformation Agenda is to increase maize production to 20 million metric tons in Nigeria in the long run but to at least 12 m tons by 2015.