Twice a year

of paddy to be used at WACOT Rice’s 120,000-ton rice mill in Argungu.

In this partnership, 50 per cent of the new farmers are women and youths.

The partnership between WACOT Rice and USAID’s Trade Hub was launched in Argungu on May 19, 2021, with the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Bert Leonard explaining that her government’s involvement with WACOT Rice was to sustain food security and creation of more jobs in Nigeria.

At that occasion, the deputy chief of party for USAID’s West Africa Trade and Investment Hub project, Mr Karl Little John, also highlighted the essence of the partnership, which included 60,000 jobs to be provided across Nigeria by the company.

In his remarks, the chairman of WACOT Rice Limited, Farouk Gumel, said over 2,000 jobs had been created by the company due to the partnership with USAID. He stressed that the expansion of the company had given opportunities for more farmers to cultivate more land for rice production.

According to Gumel, “When the company was established in 2017 we hardly sold any product for over three months because customers were always demanding for foreign rice. But today, we are selling Nigerian rice unstoppably and people continue to ask for it.”