Nigeria Poised to Have Rice Self-Sufficiency
Sometime in June, 2016, President Muhammadu Buhari, in a Ramadan meeting with members of the business community, announced that his administration would make the country self-sufficient in rice production within 18 months. The President was piqued that the country was still importing its number one staple food in the face of a foreign exchange crisis. Nigeria, Africa’s largest consumer of rice, devours about six million metric tonnes of rice annually, but half of that volume is mostly imported from India, Thailand and Brazil.
Several months down the line, the President’s promise has been buoyed by the emergence of a 100,000 metric-tonne capacity Wacot rice mill in Argungu, Kebbi State. It’s the first rice mill project to be executed and completed during the Buhari administration and its ambitions are staggering.
Rice mills dot the country, but the world-class posture of the Wacot’s will set it apart. Occupying 10 hectares of land, it cost 10 billion naira to build. It has about ten silos with the capacity to store 18,000 tonnes of rice paddy and warehouses for storing an additional 12,000 tonnes of rice paddy. The mill is stocked with machines from world renowned machinery suppliers like Buhler, Petkus, SKF, Thermax and Silos Cordoba and includes a fully equipped lab to test all parameters for ensuring consistent quality of its rice products.
Arne Hoel / World Bank