THE Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has urged rice millers in the country to embrace the bank’s backward integration initiative for paddy production.
Emefiele, made the call yesterday while inaugurating Gerawa Rice Mill in Kano.
He said the initiative is aimed at conserving foreign exchange reserves, revamping local production capacity and creating employment.
He emphasized the need for rice mills in the country to get involved in paddy production to guarantee a sustainable supply of rice paddy to their mills.
He added that such a move would also complement supply from the smallholder farmers through the bank’s partnership with the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) and prime anchors.
The CBN Governor noted that the number of rice mills in Nigeria had grown from less than 10 with a combined capacity of less than 350,000 metric tonnes in 2015 to over 68 with a combined capacity of three million metric tonnes as of January 2022, with about 10 more mills scheduled to be commissioned later this year.
Emiefiele stated that the increasing number of rice mills, which were complemented by hundreds of small-scale mills located in every State of the Federation, attested to the conducive environment the CBN had been able to create in the rice value chain through its initiatives and stakeholders’ collaboration.
Stressing the need to match the increasing milling capacity of rice nationwide with increased paddy production, the CBN Governor charged millers to take advantage of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme and the Private-Sector led Accelerated Agriculture Development Scheme (P-AADS) of the Bank, which provide long-term financing option to millers to finance commercial farms, land development, irrigation facilities and other agricultural infrastructure that will enhance their respective production plans.
He expressed gladness that the Bank’s collaboration with the fiscal authorities had helped to curtail the proliferation of Nigerian markets with sub-standard imported rice varieties.
The CBN chief, appealed to Nigerians to patronise local brand rice in line with the Federal Government’s policy of “produce what we eat and eat what we produce”, noting that the quality of rice milled in Nigeria could match most foreign brands.
He stated that the resuscitated Nigeria Commodity Exchange (NCX) will facilitate grading, sorting, quality assurance and storage infrastructure for key agricultural commodities and also enhance price discovery for smallholder farmers, adding that the exchange will provide aggregation hubs for millers to enhance paddy off-take and grow to providing futures for millers and farmers to lock in prices and operate under a controlled price regime.
On his part, promoter of the rice mill, Alhaji Isa Garewa commended the CBN governor for initiating the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP), which he said has “turned out to be the saving grace of Nigeria, especially with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
