asha 80: guy type ebony rice on google and tell me what you see....u wey dey ebonyi never hear am before?...u think i am being sarcastic?

Following from advice, this is the 1st thing I saw. Never knew of stuffs like this:

With the completion of yet another ultra-modern rice processing mill by EbonyAgro Industries Limited, the country may soon return to the path of self-sufficiency in rice production, as against the massive importation of the staple food commodity from South Eastern Asian countries.

Situated in Ekpa-Omaka in Ikwo, a rice-planting suburb of Ebonyi State, the 50,000 tons mill will redefine rice production in one of leading agricultural states in the country. The major private sector investment in Ebonyi, EbonyAgro Industries rice processing mill, is the outcome of a public private sector partnership investment initiative.

Established to process locally sourced paddy rice into parboiled polished rice of international standard, EbonyAgro rice mill will revolutionise the entire rice value chain in the state. The company will achieve this by promoting intermediation between rice processors and farmers to deepen access to agricultural inputs, market linkages, technical support services, as well as financial services.

It will thereby ameliorate the myriad challenges facing smallholder farmers in the state such as low capacity and low yield per hectare, as well as skills and technological gaps.

Charles Ugwuh, former president, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and chairman, EbonyAgro Industries Limited, says the company is committed to the development and proper coordination of rice production value chain in the state, comprising of agricultural input suppliers, farmers’ storage and logistics providers, among others, to make rice production in the state competitive and commercially viable.

The company is also working in partnership with the state government to establish an industrial cluster for rice processing in Ikwo Local Government Area of the state.

According to Ugwuh, the commissioning of the EbonyAgro rice-processing mill, which starts rice production by October, as well as the establishment of a rice-processing cluster in the state, will change the role of all players on the value chain, dividing their functions in a way that is most efficient. It will enable the farmer focus on what he knows how to do best, which is to plant rice, same for the processor.

“The old system where the farmer dries his five to ten bags of harvested rice paddy, parboils it, goes to the mill and processes it for a fee before heading to the market to sell will no longer be feasible. It can no longer be competitive. In spite of the rigours involved, the farmer will not produce high quality rice. He is likely to parboil with dirty water, put the rice on the highway to dry,” he notes.

With EbonyAgro Industries Limited bridging the rice processing gap and offering linkages to the market, rice farmers in the state will concentrate more on farming, thereby growing from mere subsistence farming into a commercially viable enterprise.

To make this a reality, the company intends to bring young enterprising graduates to inter-mediate between it and farmers to improve efficiencies by bringing technology to land preparation.

This will ensure that the farmer builds capacity and can operate rice farms as a commercial enterprise that pays profit, not as mere subsistence.

Investment in an ultra-modern rice-processing mill by EbonyAgro aligns with the Federal Government’s current policy focus to re-diversify the economy and re-position the agricultural sector to play its pivotal lead role in economic development.

It will boost the quantity and quality of rice production in the country, revitalise and harness the enormous potential of the ailing agriculture sector to create food security, stimulate job creation, while also enhancing the income of farmers.

http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/markets/companies-and-market/27811-ebonyagro-boosts-local-rice-production-completes-50000-ton-mill

OAM4J: Part of the reasons why:



http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/lagos-unveils-mega-rice-processing-factory/115907/



https://www.nairaland.com/1084470/gov-amosun-allocates-500-hectares

Good...very Good. This is want all of us want: DEVELOPMENT

A nation of corruption with corrupted Statistics. I am not buying those falsified figures. Cooked up data or data snooping.

People, abeg make una Read this Article. Just saw it..... It is long but it about the best Interview I have read this year. I can't possibly describe how hapi I am right now:

http://pointblanknews.com/pbn/exclusive/weve-unleashed-revolution-in-rice-production-in-nigeria-dr-adesina/

^^Insightful interview tharqa..meanwhile I also got this

Hajiya Ladi Maladi, a woman rice farmer who cultivated one hectare of rice, takes care of 23 orphans. From the harvest of her rice farm, she was able to build herself a house,which she is so proud of. Large-scale commercial rice producers are also expanding the production of rice locally.


Dominion Farms, a foreign investor, has invested $40
million in a commercial rice farm in Taraba State and its
rice will hit the market in 2014.Dominion Farms,a 30,000
ha field, including community out-grower farms, will
become the largest rice farm in Africa. Olam has expanded its rice cultivation by 10,000 ha, in response to the policy incentives by the government.

Yet, as our farmers rejoiced, the rice importers launched a
massive offensive, to reject their achievements, ignore the reality of massive local rice production, while clamoring to be given waivers – yet again – to bring in 15-year old rice from India and Thailand. I read a newspaper article by the Guardian, that they could not find local rice in Lagos. I was not surprised. The local mindset is that what is ‘local rice’ is ‘inferior’ rice, with stones and unsavory odor.

We have moved beyond this within the last two years. In
response to government policy and incentives for rice, 14 large-scale integrated rice mills were established by the
private sector in two years, producing international quality long-grained parboiled rice. Well-packaged, long grained parboiled local rice, from Kano (Umza rice),Ebonyi (Ebony rice), Benue State (Mikap rice) are on the market; and they are tastier and healthier than imported rice which are often 15 years old rice dumped on the Nigerian market.

What the writer in Guardian did not realize was that there
was local rice in Lagos! It was just different from what he
was expecting to be local. The true story the journalist
missed was that the Lagos State Government bought
seventeen trailer loads of paddy rice from Kebbi state,
moved them down to Lagos to mill in the rice mill set up by the Lagos state government. Just imagine: two states of Nigeria trading in rice paddy, produced locally, and milling the rice, instead of importing brown rice from Thailand and India. As the paddy rice moved from the lush paddy fields in Kebbi to Lagos, several more jobs were created – stimulating local economy and getting our youth off the endangered list of the unemployed. Lagos state sells the milled rice as ‘Eko rice’.

sunnewsonline.com/new/business/agriculture-the-value-chain-road-map/

Rice Imports through Lagos ports Down 95%.

awodman:
Where did you watch the documentary..is it on youtube?..if yes,can I get a link?

no, on NTA, last wk

ketoprofen:

no, on NTA, last wk

What day of the week and time was it...is the program a weekly one?

Ebonyi state government has done much in improving agriculture especially in rice production with the commisioning of the 3 ultra modern rice mill in the 3senatorial zones of the state,kudos 2 Gej n Elechi in that sector

The FG should ban the importation of rice.

Nigerians shall not live by rice alone.

Mehn...NIG govt smtyms makes policies dat won't help dem....d smuggling cannt be evictd cuz d people in govt re part owners of d cargos....so dis increse in production of local rice cannt nt meet d standard of imported ryc.....is still Abakaliki...nd again d ENL CONSTRUM mention d total amount of revenue nig has looose 2 neigbouring country...y can't dae focus in oda fud dat re nt imported eg beans garri palm oil 4 it 2 be affordable for nigerians...GEJ is jux makn policy dat willnt work

sulemontar: Mehn...NIG govt smtyms makes policies dat won't help dem....d smuggling cannt be evictd cuz d people in govt re part owners of d cargos....so dis increse in production of local rice cannt nt meet d standard of imported ryc.....is still Abakaliki...nd again d ENL CONSTRUM mention d total amount of revenue nig has looose 2 neigbouring country...y can't dae focus in oda fud dat re nt imported eg beans garri palm oil 4 it 2 be affordable for nigerians...GEJ is jux makn policy dat willnt work

Bros..Next time go through the whole thread before you comment.. you hear

tomakint: What Obasanjo couldn't do as a potential farmer in his 8 years Jonathan is fixing under 3 years, he is not brilliant they say, yet he created Sure-P from oil subsidy to empower youths, he created YouWin to grant soft loans to youths, he created working environments in the Agricultural, financial, manufacturing, tourism, downstreams, transport sectors...and this is the man they called 'clueless' I declare woe unto those 'Southern Nigerians' clamouring for the return of the 'Funky Mallams'!

am nt anti GEJ bt pls dnt metion sure-p we all known d kind of corruption involve.dnt think Nigerians are fools.big eye is watching

The write up of the journalist is not comprehensive. He should have asked about importation of raw unprocessed rice too. What is happening is that investors have established rice mills in the country but could not get raw rice to mill. This is because the rice producers want CONSISTENCY. They want the same type of rice all year round. Because our farmers still farm different types, the rice millers have no option but to import raw rice for processing. So while importation of processed rice is going down, that of raw rice is increasing. I can confidently tell you that we are not yet eating locally farmed rice in Nigeria. FG need to address this by producing and encouraging farmers to plant only two or three varieties in the whole country

FRESH AIR EVERY WHERE

NO SURRENDER
GEJ 2015

They smuggle rice to the country instead of direct importation through the port.

So what is good news on this? The local production has not replaced the imported rice.

Its shows that the government policy on rice is not working well.