The Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC) has called on Nigerians to get involved in the production and exportation of processed gum Arabic products, in order to boost foreign exchange generation capacities, due to global expansion in the utilization of the plant.
This was made known to journalists by the Director General of the council, Prof. Hussain Doko Ibrahim, while he was forecasting that the global revenue to be generated from production and industrialization of the plant would reach US $476.1million by 2025.
Gum Arabic is a leguminous tree species that is well adapted to Sudan and the Sahelian agro-ecology of Africa, mostly found growing wild in large commercial quantities in the northern parts of Nigeria in Plateau, Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, and Jigawa States.
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It is a natural gum that is made up of hardened sap of various species of the acacia tree, and the gum is collected just like the process of collecting latex from rubber trees, by piercing or cutting the tree with a sharp metal such as a knife to bring out the gum.
The DG noted that the global market for gum arabic is expected to expand steadily at 5.4 percent per year due to the preference for naturally derived gum in the food and beverage industry, including the growing application of the gum in paper manufacturing, meat processing, textiles, film forming and suspending agents in the production of pharmaceuticals.
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He pointed out that no artificial or synthetic substitute has been found that can match Gum Arabic despite its shortages in 1973–1974 and 1984–1985, which led many companies to develop alternative formulations involving other hydrocolloids, such as starches or pectins, for partial or total replacement of the gum.
