With crude oil insufficient to sustain the economy, attention expectedly is shifting to agriculture, which decades ago, was the propeller of the then buoyant economy.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh explained that the diversification agenda will see Nigeria adopting a labour intensive agriculture strategy to boost local production of rice, cocoa and other crops.

Already, investors in the rice value-chain have deployed the out-grower scheme to address challenges bordering on land acquisition and labour, while efforts are being examined to address provision of sufficient rice mills to boost the processing of rice paddy in the country.

Hitherto, President of Rice Millers, Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIMIDAN) and Group Managing Director, Elephant Group, Tunji Owoeye had sought government’s intervention in the rice value-chain saying: “We want government to step up the access to credit for the value chain operators, improve the capacity of NIRSAL to take on insurance and risks much more to support the teeming value chain operators across all the products, while agribusiness must be technologically driven as it is done in the western world.

“It would be recalled that ten rice mills were approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) of the previous administration. We must ensure that those mills come on stream. If we put those ten mills on stream with the capacity of 35,000 metric tonnes per mill, that is about 350,000 metric tonnes added to the nation’s paddy processing. This is going to encourage our farmers, create employment and also bring down the pressure on foreign exchange. This should not only be done for rice but for all products”, he added.

For Dangote Group, making a foray into productive agriculture is expected to be a game changer in the sector as he recently launched his rice out-growers scheme in Hadejia, Kafin-Hausa local government area of Jigawa state.

Starting with 20,000 hectares of rice cultivation under scheme known as out growers, to be expanded to cover 800, 000 hectares over the next three years, Dangote noted that his investment in the agricultural sector will revamp the sector.

He explained: “We are committed to the development of outgrower scheme by providing local, value added products and services that meet the ‘basic needs’ of the populace. To this end, the Dangote Rice Farm Ltd, will run an initial pilot in Hago-Fadama, Kafin Hausa and Auyo areas which would see Dangote Rice developing small hold farmers by providing quality inputs (certified seeds, fertilizers, agro-chemicals and petrol), improved agricultural practices and technology to increase yield and produce quality rice paddy which would also be bought back from them by Dangote Rice Limited. The Outgrower programme in Jigawa state is expected to create more than 10,000 direct and indirect jobs to the host communities.”

He added that Dangote Rice is planning to plant approximately 150,000ha of long grain white rice and produce near one million tonnes of high-quality par boiled white rice for sale into the Nigerian market.

“Our internal policy within Dangote Rice Ltd is to procure 30% of our Rice production from local farmers who will be developed into out grower groups. These outgrowers will be simultaneously developed alongside our commercial farming operations”, he said.

Why Rice?

Dangote said: “Before the discovery of oil, our economic was built around potentials from our palm oil, groundnut, cotton, and rubber plantations. Now the price of oil has plummeted from a peak of $116 per barrel in June 2014 to as low as $29 per barrel in January 2016, this means there is huge loss of revenue to the government”.

He justified his investment in rice cultivation pointing out the situation the country has found itself needs a reversal.

According to him, Nigeria spends nearly $1.8bn yearly importing approximately 3.2 million MT of rice to feed its population.

“These are dollars that could be used on more impactful social development interventions if they were not needed for food imports. Currently the average yield of rice in the country is between 1.8 to 2.5 MT/ha, depending on the region and the crop (wet or dry) and with or without irrigation 1.8 MT/ha, which is significantly lower than the best practice yields in Africa of 9.2 MT/ha generated in Egypt”, he added.

He regretted that the huge amounts were being expended on food items that the country has potential to produce locally with attendant losses of employment generation and wealth creation opportunities.

Dangote disclosed that the Dangote Rice Outgrowers Scheme has been designed as a one stop solution for the rice value chain.

In his remark during the rice seedling distribution, Minister of state for Agriculture, Senator Heneiken Lokpobiri lauded the initiative of Dangote, saying his intervention will boost government’s efforts at providing food security for the citizenry, creating jobs and reducing dependency on food importation.

While expressing government’s readiness to provide all the needed support to make the Dangote rice outgrowers scheme a success, the Minister said the federal government is putting in place, a strategy that will make farmers have greater access to farm implements to help them produce with ease.

Also, Special Adviser to Alhaji Dangote on Rice and Coordinator of the Outgrowers Scheme, Lulu Carlos explained that 6.1mmt of rice is consumed yearly but not more than 2.6 million metric tons are produced locally leaving the rest to importation.

Lulu said: “We are happy to start today the partnership with the 1st Out Growers bloc of 200 hectares, shared among 8 communities. I’ve seen the same project born in my country, Brazil, whereby from 2.5 Mt tons in the beginning to today where we reached 9 tons of paddy rice per hectare in productivity.

“This has transformed our country (Brazil), from a net importer of rice in the year 2000 to a ne‎t exporter in the year of 2009. This was achieved through a big out grower scheme in the rice region, which, today involves thousands of independent farmers responsible for 80 per cent of the 12 million tonnes locally produced rice and a small number of large commercial farms supplying the remaining 20 per cent.

“Also, Alhaji Aliko, has instructed me to conduct the project here for at least 30 per cent from out growers and 70 per cent from our commercial farm to be established in the state. But this is not our limit. We are today convinced that this equation will have more and more out-growers participation in the future, due to very good and welcome response we are getting from all the communities we are dealing with.

“We are bringing to the people top quality seeds, fertilizers and chemicals as well the training and teaching the best and most modern agricultural‎ practices, to enable you to boost your productivity and quality of your rice. We are also committed to roll out the scheme to cover another 1,000 hectares for the coming rainy season in June / July, using the experience of this 1st plot to guide our progress.”

The Jigawa State governor, Alhaji Badaru Muhammed Abubakar commended Dangote Rice Limited for choosing Jigawa as the pilot state for the project and pledged the readiness of his administration to provide all necessary support to the project.

He said the project was part of his government’s commitment to improve agriculture and industrialize the state for job creation and poverty eradication.