By Wasilat Ahmad
Niger state governor Abubakar Sani Bello said the state is capable of producing 2million metric tons of rice out of the 7million metric tons required in Nigeria annually.
This is as the governor is hopeful and believes that very soon the state will hit 1million hectares of land away from the 300,000 hectares being cultivated presently.
He said this on Thursday during the National Flag off of 2020/2021 dry season rice farming in Minna, the state capital.
“The programme is a very significant event to the state because we all remember that one of the cardinal objectives of President Muhammadu Buhari administration is food sufficiency and I must thank him for the support and effort through CBN as well as Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), because what you see here are products of hard work, a joint team and I believe that once we come together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.
“We are flagging it off in Niger state because the state has the largest land mass. I want to believe that we are number one producer of rice in Nigeria and Niger state alone can produce up to 2 million metric tons of rice in a year out of the 7million tons required in Nigeria.
“We have almost 9million hectares of land but at the moment we are cultivating only 300,000 hectares of land. With the pyramid display, it is a significant improvement and increase in our production level,” Bello said.
He however noted that with the programme, the state is gradually attracting national and international attention in rice production, adding that with its capacity, the state can feed the whole of Africa.
According to the governor, “Every opportunity is therefore need to increase rice value chain.
“I will also encourage our farmers to participate in dry season rice farming especially farmers who lost their farm produce to flood.
“I’m sure with the support from the CBN, farmers will recover what they have lost to flood and on our part we will continue to support farmers to increase their output.”
In his welcome address, the President of RIFAN, Muhammed Aminu Goronyo said the display of the Nigerian and Egyptian pyramids was to welcome guests to celebrate the dry season cultivation which is very special that was deliberately and jointly initiated by CBN and other development partners.
Goronyo said, “The special dry season programme was conceived by CBN and RIFAN to achieve rice sufficiency.
“We are going to achieve two dry season cropping, which has never happened in the calendar of Nigeria.
“We initiated it because of what the CBN came up with so that the challenges facing farmers would be solved.
“We will get between 4million and 5million metric tons of rice if we succeeded with the two dry seasons.
“Nigeria requires about 7.5million to 8million metric tons per annum for consumption. It means that there would be enough to consume locally and enough to export which was why CBN sat with us and came up with the beautiful dry season programme.”
He appealed to the Federal government not to allow rice to be imported into the country when borders are reopened because RIFAN has more than enough to feed the country.
He said, “The rice displayed in Niger is just a fraction of what we have cultivated because there are still more in Sokoto, Kebbi, Cross River and other parts of the country where our members are.
“RIFAN with CBN has periodically make rice available from farms to rice mills and to end users without any side effects as we don’t preserve our rice.”
