Rice revolution in Kano started in 2014 when 70, 000 rice farmers were mapped out to benefit from the year’s dry season farming programme in the state’s agricultural scheme which was in conjunction with the then Federal Ministry of Agriculture’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).
The state chairman Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Alhaji Abubakar Haruna Aliyu, said with the introduction of Anchor Borrower Programme through the various rice farmer associations in states, ATA was strengthened and more people began to venture into agriculture, especially dry season rice production.
He added that the number of rice farmers on the state was always in the increase as demand increases and that rice production has been made attractive not only to farmers but to others as well.
He said the decision to close the land borders against rice importation had created huge demand for rice within the nation.
These developments have triggered a revolution in rice that projected rice production as well as rice milling in Kano State.
In Kano State from 2015 to 2020 no fewer than 230 micro, small, medium and large rice mills emerged and a lot of the existing rice mills in the state have been upgrading their capacities in terms of production as well as workforce.
It has been a common scenario in places like Kura, Gezawa, Bunkure, Garun Malam and Tudun Wada local governments of the Kano state to see a cluster of small scale rice millers doing business.
According to Engineer Iliyasu Nazifi, who is also the chief executive officer of Golden Star rice mill Company, in the last five years rice production had received the boost it had never received in the history of agriculture in Nigeria.
A source close to the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN) revealed that the milling industry has recorded a great number of new rice mills emerging in the state in the last five years, adding that they are mostly indigenously owned.
The source also attributed the sector’s expansion to the federal government’s border drill policy on rice importation into the country.
