By Godfrey Olukya 13-2-2017
Dangote Rice, a subsidiary of Dangote Group is set to launch a 25,000 hectares out growers rice scheme in Sokoto Nigeria’s Sokoto state as one of the efforts to make the country self reliant in rice supply.
A statement issued today by Dangote group said that Sokoto is set to become a 25,000 hectares ,multi-million naira out growers rice scheme with a prospect of hundreds of thousands of employment opportunities for the rural communities inhabitants.
President of the Group, Aliko Dangote disclosed at the weekend that the Company will on Wednesday, flag off with a pilot project of 500 ha by Gonroyo dam, in Goronyo community. Gonroyo dam is the second largest in the country, after Kainji.
The flag off ceremony which will be performed by the governor of the state, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwa will witness seedlings being distributed to the primary local farmers who will in turn plant the seed after which Dangote Rice company will purchase from them for milling and final processing.
Sokoto state is the second after Jigawa out of the 14 states spread across the state where Dangote Rice plans to operate outgrower scheme to empower local farmers and create job opportunities for community dwellers and reduce migration to the cities.
Dangote Rice projects in the 14 states, when, operational, will generate a significant number of jobs and increase take-home income for smallholder farmers, all while diversifying Nigeria’s economy and reducing the nation’s food import bill.
Statistics from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) estimates that rice demand in Nigeria reached 6.3 million MT in 2015, with only 2.3 million MT of that demand satisfied by local production.
This local production shortfall leaves a gap of 4.0 million MT that is currently being filled through formal importation of rice or illegal imports over land borders.
By year-end 2017, Dangote Rice plans to produce 225,000 MT of parboiled, milled white rice. This will allow us to satisfy 4% of the total market demand within 1 year. Our model can then be successfully scaled to produce 1,000,000 MT of milled rice in order to satisfy 16% of the domestic market demand for rice over the next 5 years.
Dangote Rice has a mandate to locally high-quality milled, parboiled rice for the Nigeria market. This goal will be achieved by sourcing the raw material (paddy) required from the Dangote Rice Outgrower Scheme.
The centralized outgrower model enables a high level of control over product quality and quantity. The purchasing price given to farmers will reflect each season’s market price and will be set after an extensive market price survey and consultation with all stakeholders.
In the short-term, Dangote Rice will be responsible for importing all of the inputs needed for cultivation and making them available to the outgrowers.
In addition to the outgrowers, an additional ~260 jobs will be created by year-end 2017. These individuals will serve as agronomists, credit officers and staff of the mill.
Dangote Rice will also establish raw material reception, drying, hulling, parboiling units and silos in strategic areas throughout the country near our additional out grower communities. Each site will store dried, hulled, parboiled bran rice. DRL will then transport this bran rice to a mill, where finished rice will be produced.
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