The Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS), has moved to create a larger market window for farmers by aggregating rice paddy across Nigeria to meet increasing demand occasioned by borders closure.
A rice paddy is an irrigated or flooded field where rice is grown.
The National Coordinator of the group, Mr Tedheke Retson, made this known in an interview with Newsmen in Abuja on Monday.
Retson said the move, beyond meeting the increasing demand for rice, was meant to encourage more Nigerians to go into rice farming without being afraid of how to dispose of the commodity.
According to him, the group’s farm, sitting on more than 3, 000 hectares of land, is a farm settlement with state-of-the-art rice processing plants and a ready market to comfortably take off the burden of selling the commodity.
He said: “We are currently short by about five million metric tonnes of rice every year.
“With the closure of borders, the Federal Government made it possible and easier for groups like ours to take that lead to get involved and make things happen.
“We are currently producing about 2, 000 of 25 kg bags of rice in a day and we are moving from that to excess of about 10, 000 bags every day before the end of the first quarter of 2020.
“As it stands, we cannot meet the demand. We are aggregating paddy rice across the country. So, opportunities are created for those who are farming rice, for processors and those who are selling.
“We have brought in de-stoners with the capacity of de-stoning about three trailer loads of rice in a day, polishers with the capacity of polishing about three trailer loads a day.
“There are also whiteners that will ensure that the rice is clean from all forms of particles without adding chemicals, and we have also brought in colour sorters to separate brown from white and white from black.
“All of these upgrades have increased our capacity to about 100 tonnes of rice every day. We are working to get two processing mills with the capacity of 200 tonnes a day. So, in no distant time we will be doing about 300,000 tonnes of rice in a month.”
The coordinator hailed the border closure saying it was a blessing for small holder farmers, small rice producers and rice marketers in Nigeria, noting that it was only smugglers who were not happy with the development.
He called for total support for local production to boost the revenue base of the country while improving Nigerians’ standard of living.
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