President Goodluck Jonathan Transformation Agenda in the Agricultural Sector. President Goodluck Jonathan will commit a total of N13 billion to the establishment of rice and cassava processing mills in the country. The Minister of Agriculture Dr. Akinwumi Adesina explained ten integrated rice mills as well as six cassava mills would be established in the country in pursuit of government’s policy to become self sufficient in rice and cassava production. The Minister stated, “They will not be owned or run by government, they are going to be owned managed and operated by the private sector, it’s part of government’s way of making this available at a term of financing that can be afforded by the private sector. The acquisition of this will be done by the bank of industry. It will select the private sector people, they will have the down payment, and the plants are going to be constructed and they have a financing facility for them to own it. Government is just doing its job which is to get things to happen, but the private sector will do every single thing about it. There are still those who go around trying to get waivers to import rice and throw us into poverty, this will no longer be possible.” According to the minister, the integrated rice mills would be located in ten states; Kebbi, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, Benue, Kogi, Bayelsa, Bauchi, Ogun and Anambra. He added the cassava processing mills would be located in Cross River, Abia, Delta, Ondo and Ogun states. The 10 rice mills would have the total capacity to mill 360,000 metric tonnes and the six cassava mills will have total capacity of 180,000 metric tonnes. Dr. Adesina stated the integrated rice mills when fully in operation would process paddy rice into finished rice. According to him, the country is currently growing rice production, saying the number of states producing rice in the country grew from 10 to 23 between 2012 and 2014. The Minister of Information Labaran Maku also spoke at the briefing, saying the 16 rice and cassava mills would be completed within 18 months. President Jonathans policies in agriculture have so far led to significant advances towards self sufficiency in food production and transforming Nigeria.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 10:01:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015