How to Ensure Rice Self-Sufficiency in Nigeria, By Processors

Nigerian rice farmers

 

A foremost stakeholder in the Nigerian rice value chain has listed eight ways to boost domestic rice production so as to ensure self-sufficiency.

Dropping the hint recently in Abuja, the Chairman, National Rice Millers Association of Nigeria (NRMAN) and Chief Executive Officer of Umza Rice, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar, maintained that the advice must be seriously considered if the country was truly desirous of halting rice importation in the near future.

The eight ways to ensure rice self-sufficiency, according to Alhaji Abubakar, include the provision of improved seeds and seedlings to ensure higher yield, provision of adequate tractors/equipment, and improvement in mechanisation, access to land, as well as land clearing services by the government. Others are access to fund at low interest rate, access to quality inputs such as fertilizer and agrochemicals, access to market and market expansion.

The chairman lamented the high cost of rice production, which he attributed to the high cost of fund and power, among others.

“We can operate because of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) credit facility window at 9 per cent interest rate. At a commercial interest rate between 20 and 24 per cent, no rice miller can survive, and we have to buy diesel to power the mills with generators. This is apart from the high cost of transportation and other infrastructural challenges. It is very difficult to compete with foreign millers under this environment.” he said.

The chairman said 21 rice mills were established in four years, and if that trend continues under a good investment climate, in the next few years, many mills will spring up and the country will be exporting rice.

He hailed the CBN for placing rice paddy on the restriction list for accessing foreign exchange for the importation of the commodity, saying the policy would go a long way in boosting rice production and processing in the country.