NABG asks Nigeria to bring innovation to rice value chain

The Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG) has called on Nigeria to invest in competitiveness by bringing knowledge and innovation into the rice value chain.

The President of NABG, Alhaji Sani Dangote, gave the submission as a lead speaker at the 3rd Daily Trust Agricultural Conference and Exhibition holding in Lagos, where he spoke on ‘The Rice Economy and Value Chain Issues.’

Dangote, who was represented by the Director-General of NABG, Dr. Manzo Daniel Maigari, stressed the need for Nigeria to standardize practices in the sector, develop protocols for rice farming as well as create an enterprise to enable private capital get into the sector.

“This can only be achieved through clusterisation with full value chain development in each cluster. Review of past agricultural policies to align them with the current realities and set goals and objectives,” he said.

Commenting on the current situation, Dangote said production of rice has increased by 60 percent peaking at 4.8m metric tonnes in 2018.

According to him, all states in Nigeria can produce rice. “We only need to prioritise, for instance, less dissipation of energy on wheat.”

Rice economy which is estimated at $5.2 billion, according to him, is projected to hit $6.3 billion by 2025.

He disclosed that large-scale processors such as Olam and WACOT are developing out-grower schemes in conjunction with government, commercial banks, technical and financial partners and input providers.

Identifying some of the challenges, he said, the combined improved seed production capacity was 100,000 tons which was satisfying less than 8% of national demand.