RIPAN Sets Agenda For Sustainable Rice Sector In Nigeria

Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN) has charged the incoming administration at the federal to ensure that the gains of President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration in local rice production are sustained and improved upon for a sustainable, competitive and viable rice subsector in the country.

Members of the association said the government must as a matter of economic importance take emergency actions to reposition the sector and make it more resilient for food security, job creation and national security.

RIPAN also urged the government to design and create an agricultural flagship platform that can lend to agriculture at single interest rate as it is practiced globally. It said that can be achieved through the creation of a “grain risk fund” that can take care of the exigencies of the grain industry.

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Director-general of RIPAN Andy Ekwelem who led executive members of the association on a press conference in Abuja, said, the incoming administration should prioritise the repositioning of the Nigeria Custom Services for effective manning of the borders to prevent smuggling of rice across Nigeria’s land borders.

“The incoming administration must have to devise a new strategy of dealing with smugglers and economic saboteurs if we want our food security programmes as well as the huge investments of both the government of Nigeria and the private sector in the rice subsector to survive. To this extent. Nigeria’s current Border Surveillance System should be re-organized to enable the Customs and other agencies at the borders, carry out all weather surveillance,” Ekwelem said.

Ekwelem said there is need for a funding programme to enable rice processors engage in paddy production through large scale farming, out grower scheme and contract farming, while pointing to the need to encourage state governments to ease bottlenecks in the processes of acquiring land for large scale farming of paddy rice.

“We hope that the incoming administration will deploy emergence action towards the repair/ expansion irrigation facilities across the country to enable multiple cycle of cultivation,” the association stated, urging government to consider better ways to effectively manage and maintain dams across the country. “It will be very beneficial to Nigerian agriculture if they will commence the de-silting of the various dams and bodies of water within the country to help provide for the water needed by farmers for irrigation as well as mitigate flooding.”

Ekwelem called for emergence intervention on power generation and supply to industries to lessen the burden of huge capital investment in diesel power generation so that finished products can be competitive.

The rice processors expressed hope that the incoming administration will follow through some of the policies of the current administration as well as design and launch new ones to further strengthen and sustain the Nigeria rice industry.