One of the important key players of value chain of maize is processor. Maize processing does not require any specific academic qualifications before you can make your money in the value chain of maize. In fact, it requires little technicalities which any anyone can learn within short period of time. Maize processing can be divided into two:

 Primary processing: This involves cleaning, grinding, hulling, pounding, milling, grinding, tempering, soaking, parboiling, drying, sieving of maize.

Secondary processing: This also involves baking, frying, cooking, extruding, blending, fermenting, roasting, packaging and marketing.

Some of the by-products of maize are: corn meal, corn flour, snack foods, tuwo, ogi, starch, ethanol, drug among others.

There are two major milling in maize processing

• Dry milling

This is done by old technology which involved used of grinding stone or stone mill. The products derived are numerous, with their variety depending to a large extent on particle size. Examples include corn meal, cones and corn flour. Their chemical composition has been well established and their uses are extensive, including brewing, manufacturing of snack foods and breakfast cereals and many others.

• Wet milling

The largest volume of maize is processed by wet milling to yield starch and other valuable byproducts such as maize gluten meal and feed. The starch is used as a raw material for a wide range of food and non-food products. In this process clean maize is soaked in water under carefully controlled conditions to soften the kernels. This is followed by milling and separation of the components by screening, centrifugation and washing to produce starch from the endosperm, oil from the germ and food products from the residues. The starch has industrial applications as such and is also used to produce alcohol and food sweeteners by either acid or enzymatic hydrolysis. The latter is done with bacterial and fungal alpha-amylase, glucoamylase, beta-amylase and pullulanase. Saccharides of various molecular weights are liberated yielding sweeteners of different functional properties. These include liquid or crystalline dextrose, high-fructose maize syrups, regular maize syrups and maltodextrins, which have many applications in foods.

Marketing of Maize

Marketing of maize is done at different levels depending on the purpose and volume of maize sold. Maize is sold either as fresh or dry. Small and medium scale famers prefer to sell their maize out at the farm gate to middlemen which are wholesalers and retailers while some of them sell in the village or district markets. However, large scale maize farmers sell in large quantities and hence prefer to sell to manufacturing and processing companies. Some of these companies are:

• Muhammed Agricultural Company is located in Dawanau Market, Tudun Wada, Kano. This company is an agricultural processing company that purchase raw materials such as Cashew nut, Cocoa and Maize.
• Nagari Seeds Nigeria Limited is located in Zaria, Kaduna. This company is an agricultural processing company that process Maize, Soya and Beans.
• Nigerian Eagle Flour Mill is the largest Flour Mill in Oyo State that process maize into many by-products.

References

http://www.foramfera.com/

https://cgspace.cgiar.org