Aminat Isah, in Kebbi
The Kebbi State government is targeting the production of 2.5million tons of rice in 2018, ROYAL NEWS has gathered.
The Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Developement in Kebbi State, Alhaji Garba Dandiga, has disclosed this on Monday stressing that the State is working towards ensuring food security for the nation.
Dandiga who spoke during the tour of rice farms across the 16 local government areas producing rice in the state along with the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed.
According to him, “About 1.5 million bags of rice was produced in the last farming season with an expectation to produce 2.5 million tons this year to help attain rice sufficiency target.
“We want to help Nigeria achieve 50 per cent of its rice requirement. We are aggregating dry and rain fell seasons. This year, we want to record 2.5 million tons but the important thing is we produce more rice paddy in the dry season than the rain fell.”
Dandiga while taking the delegation on a tour of a 20 kilometres rice farm towards the western part and 50 kilometres at the north of Suru local government said it would be difficult to access the paddy farms during raining season due to flooding.
He said: “Last year, this is where they sold 1.5 million bags of rice paddy. It is the biggest in the history of the state. We have eight of this in the state, there is one at Argungu, Jega among others.”
Out correspondent however gathered that during the tour, an ongoing construction of private rice miling facility with 370 tons of rice per day as well as the popular Kamba rice market sharing boundary with the Niger and Benin republic where tons of paddy is being sold for milling and exported was visited.
