The Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RiFAN) has called for
increased collaboration with Federal Government to improve rice production and ensure its sufficiency in the country.
Its National President, Alhaji Aminu Goronyo, made the call during a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh , on Tuesday in Abuja.
Goronyo said members of the Association came to meet with the minister to seek for enhanced collaboration and to brief him about RiFAN’s efforts to increase rice production in the country.
He said “the Federal Government said the country should not only be fed by local production,
but also be self sufficient in food production.
“Nigerian rice farmers are capable of making the country self sufficient in rice if the enabling environment is provided.”
The RiFAN boss added that the Association had engaged consultants who would help to map out
farms to get them registered, noting that the ministry would have verifiable data of the Association and it’s farming activities.
“We have told our farmers that we are not involving government data capturing and the association will foot the bill.
“We will register our 12 million farmers with their names, phone numbers and have details of everyone.
“We have started collecting information and the correct data will be submitted to the ministry every quarter so the rice cultivation situation will always be handy.
“We have the capacity to feed the nation,’’ he stressed.
Goronyo also disclosed that the Association had engaged consultants in Small and Medium Scale rice milling to work with rice processing units to come out with a format to establish clusters in each zone.
“Each cluster will have not less than 10 rice processing machines that will produce two tonnes per hour in a cluster.
“If we will continue like this, we will produce more and efforts of saboteurs in rice production for the nation will be minimal.”
He commended the Buhari administration for the encouragement given to RiFAN through the Central Bank of Nigeria platform to access loan and provide off takers to buy their produce.
Responding, the minister commended the efforts of the Association and assured members of the ministry’s continued collaboration to increase rice production capacity in the country.
He said “the ministry has 100 threshers which will soon be distributed to farmers to boost production.
“We are also bringing in 75 reapers to make farmers’ work easy because to reap is a very big task but we will make it available to clusters under RiFAN control but they will pay at subsidised rate.”
Ogbeh added that government was also taking the issue of irrigation seriously because the country needed to take advantage of rivers so that farmers would have all-year-round farming.
He advised RiFAN on shifting cultivation, saying planting rice on a particular land every year was
dangerous to human health.
“It is advisable to plant rice on a land for one year and plant other crops for some years before planting rice again; that will increase yield and make it maintain its nutrients,’’ he said. (NAN)