FG Targets 17m Rice Farmers For This Year

The number of rice farmers in Nigeria is currently being increased by five million people in order to enhance rice cultivation across the country, the Federal Government has announced.

It said although rice farmers in Nigeria increased from five million to 12 million in the past two years, it was important to attract more people into the business so as to attain sufficiency in rice production.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who disclosed this during a tour of some rice farms, stated that the government had commenced the cultivation of rice on additional 200,000 hectares of land in different states across the country.

He stated that 25 farmers would cultivate the crop on each hectare, adding that a total of five million farmers would be needed to work on the 200,000 hectares of farmland.

The minister reiterated that Thailand had commenced moves to establish rice mills in Nigeria, encouraged by the increasing number of farmers and states involved in rice production in the country.

He said the Federal Government had won its fight against rice importation, especially from Thailand, as Nigeria had reduced its importation of rice by over 90 per cent.

“As we speak today, Thailand rice growers are making passionate appeal to the Federal Government. What they are doing now is that they want to set up rice mills in Nigeria, which means we have won,” Mohammed stated.

When asked again to explain why Thailand rice producers were pushing to set up mills in Nigeria, Mohammed said, “Thailand wants to set up several rice mills in Nigeria because we have stopped importing from them.”

He stated that Nigeria was able to cut down on the importation of rice from Thailand from 644,000 metric tonnes two years ago to a little over 20,000MT currently.

The President, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, Aminu Goronyo, recently stated that Nigerians consumed about 7.9 million tonnes of rice in 2017, with the country’s local farmers producing 5.8 million tonnes last year.






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