The Executive Secretary, National Sugar Development Council, Kamar Bakrin, has said the Sugar Institute would produce two million seedlings to boost production in the country when fully functional.

Bakrin, who disclosed this at a briefing in Abuja yesterday, said the revitalisation of the Nigerian Sugar Institute located in Ilorin, Kwara State had since started achieving production of two million seedlings of sugar as well as train about 1,500 sugar industry players.

He said: "The council brought in two new sugar investors who control about 20,000 hectares of land under his leadership through the implementation of the Nigerian Sugar Masterplan, NSMP.

"You know that's one of the major problems in Nigeria... if you don't have proper incentive alignment, people will do whatever they want."

He said the council had redesigned the backward integration performance incentive framework to ensure proper alignment between the objectives of the NSMP and the activities of operators.

Barkin disclosed that the council also identified three strategies that would help grow the sugar sector through its Nigerian Sugar Master Plan.

He said it set clear performance target for the industry, adding that the NSMP was built on key policy pillars.

According to him, the pillars are backward integration, fiscal incentives , project intervention and performance management .

"The critical thing for us is to accelerate the attainment of the goals of the NSMP through strategic interventions. And we recognise three objectives: One is to increase the output of sugar locally to match domestic demand; to become a globally competitive player.

"We also want to become a globally competitive producer of sugar as a country and make imports a lot less attractive.

"The third is to maximise the output of sugar because this sector also produces ethanol and power and animal feeds. We are seeking to maximise the industry's output, and increase the amount of land available for the programme," he added.