Rice is a staple food to more than three quarters of Nigeria’s population. With the population predicted to reach 250 billion by 2030, the demand for rice is expected to increase by two million tonnes. Efforts are being made to empower more farmers and increase infrastructure to play a key role in processing fast growing rice volumes, DANIEL ESSIET reports.
As demand for rice rises, so does the pressure to introduce initiatives to fight shortage.
There are campaigns to develop rice processing and added-value solutions that meet requirements in paddy handling, storage, and milling.
In Lagos, the government is seeking to generate and accelerate the adoption of improved technologies in the agricultural sector. Consequently, the emergence of rice production is reviving rural communes in Badagry, as farmers are seizing this opportunity through the formation of cooperatives to boost their income.
The Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Agriculture, Dr. Oluwarotimi Fashola, said residents value parboiled rice and the government wants to provide economic opportunity for farmers receive assistance to grow more paddy that would be sent to its multimillion 32 tonnes per hour processing plant in Imota, Ikorodu.
Fashola said the state government was bringing in significant global experience of delivering knowledge and expertise in agriculture to help businesses grow sustainably and improve farmers’livelihoods.
He said the state has intervened on key levels such as farming and milling to promote its place on the rice market.
Speaking during the training and empowerment programme, Fashola said the state’s economy has great advantage with the high population dynamics on people consumption of rice imported in the country which reduce with the improvement of the quality of the local rice production of the famers in the state.
He said: “The state government has invested to develop the agriculture production of the rice value chain. One outcome is the training and empowerment of 500 rice farmers across the state. He, however, assured that by December this year, the Imota Rice mill would have commenced production.’’
For the Commissioner for Agriculture, Ms. Abisola Olusanya increasing production is the growth opportunity for the rice industry in the state.
To achieve this, she noted that production and processing obstacles would need to be overcome, but capturing a share of the fast-growing domestic market could transform the rice industry. Ms. Olusanya noted that if production, handling, and marketing of local rice varieties were scaled, Lagos producers would capture the markets.
According to her, Lagos would face significant changes over the next few years to produce the volume and quality of nutritious food to feed a growing population heading above 20 million. Following this, she reiterated that the government wants to assist rice producers to adopt improved varieties and enhance transfer of knowledge. Ms. Olusanya said though the empowerment is still not enough to go round rice farmers, it would do a lot to assist the farmers. She said the farmers have been empowered with Knapsack Sprayer, fertiliser and Faro 44 rice seedlings and that if they followed what they have learnt and produce the expected volume of paddy, the state government would ready to buy from them. On the whole, the government is engaged in technical cooperation, including the sharing of technologies and best practices to increase production and productivity, including reduction of post-harvest losses and improved grain quality.
The Chairman, House Committee on Agriculture, Kehinde Joseph, implored the 500 beneficiaries not to let the state government down, but ensured they perform beyond expectations by setting international standard in their produce.