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Ban on rice’ll increase local production — Stakeholders

By BusinessNews Staff on January 4, 2014

For local rice production to increase in the country, stakeholders have called for the ban of imported rice as they express displeasure over the N365 billion spent every year on rice importation into the country’s markets.

An official of the Lagos State ministry of Agriculture, Mr. Tunde Giwa, spoke the minds of the stakeholders at the unveiling of the value chains business manual packaged by the Commercial Agriculture Development Project in Lagos recently.

He said it was better to ban the importation of rice gradually to allow locally produced rice, like the Ofada rice to thrive. He said banning the importation of rice will also reduced unemployment.

Tunde Giwa disclosed that with the support of the World Bank, the Commercial Agriculture Development Project has assisted farmers under the rice value chain with various inputs.

He said the inputs include tractor, milling machine, threshing machine, combine harvester, willower, agrochemicals and many more, just as the project has also intervened in land preparation for rice by changing the operating system from manual to mechanized system with the provision of 4WD tractors and implements which has reduced the cost of land preparation from N30,000 to N50,000 per hectare.

Giwa said “Commercial agriculture has supported over 1284 farmers under the poultry value chain with various inputs including nipple fitted battery cages, tricycle, egg transport crates, combined hatchery and incubator, defeathering machine as well as promoting the use of nipple fitted battery cage for poultry birds by project beneficiaries as against the open drinkers system. He said the support for the poultry value chain has resulted in reducing the mortality and disease transmission by over 15 percent, increase in egg production by 20 percent and feed waste by over 40 per cent”.

Giwa added by saying that the commercial agriculture has also supported 1483 farmers under the aquaculture value chain with collapsible fish tank, extruding technology, fish seed, solar submersible pumping machine as well as acquisition of improved smoking kilns and improved packaging materials, commodity interest groups in the state under the aquaculture processing value chain.

Professor Adewale Dipeolu, a guest speaker from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, thanked the Lagos state government for taking agriculture away from peasantry to big business adding that the step Lagos state has taken will help the country as a whole move from small scale production to large scale production with a profit making attitude.

He also beckoned on the government to back agriculture with infrastructure, long term funds, land and adequate intermediate technology. He however told farmers to be alert to change in government policies and environment as well as market forecasts.

Adewale continued by saying that farmers should also be very innovative and learn how to go with market trends adding that innovation will assist in placing agriculture business in Nigeria in the map of the world

He said “ Is a good thing Lagos state government and indeed the Minister of Agriculture Adewunmi Adeshina is taking agriculture very serious, this action will help increase innovation and create employments and at the long run, Nigeria can feed itself and feed other nations as well”.

[Vanguard]

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