They said cost of production had increased, leading many of them to suspend production.
Alhaji Ali Sarkin Noma, owner of Ganzaki Rice Mill in Jalingo, told Daily Trust on Sunday that a litre of diesel now sold at N600, as against N400 few weeks ago.
He said there was also the scarcity of diesel and poor power supply from the national grid.
Sarkin Noma explained that consumers of locally processed rice would pay more because of the increase of diesel and paddy rice.
According to him, they purchase paddy rice from markets across the state and transport fares are up.
He said a 50kg bag of locally processed rice was sold at N23,500 before the increase of diesel, and now, millers have no option than to increase their prices in order to remain in business.
Musa Garba, another miller, also told Daily Trust on Sunday that he reduced his production level from 600 bags of paddy rice to about 100 bags daily because of high cost of diesel and poor power supply.
He said consumers of locally processed rice would pay more if the current trend of high cost of diesel was not addressed.
A large-scale irrigation farmer, Yahaya Mafindi, said many rice farms had dried because farmers could not afford to buy both diesel and petrol to water their rice farms.
Yahaya Mafindi stated that rice millers got supply of paddy rice from irrigation farmers this time and many farmers are unable to fully cultivate their farm, which means there will be less paddy rice for the millers.
Meanwhile, findings revealed that a liter of petrol is now sold at N300 while diesel is sold at N600 in Jalingo.
In Kano State, it was gathered that all the three categories of rice mills operating in the state are virtually affected by the ongoing fuel scarcity. The mega, medium and small scale mills in the state are all complaining about the current fuel scarcity.
According to the proprietor of Premier Rice Company, Ilyasu Nazifi, an engineer, many rice mills are running on diesel, which is currently selling at N500 per litre, which he said had made production very expensive. He explained that the fuel hike in price and its scarcity had affected not only production but other logistic aspects of the rice value chain.
He further revealed that the price of rice had not changed as rice has been one of the main stabled commodities in the country. He, however expressesed worry that rice mills would be left with no option than to increase the price should the hike and scarcity persist longer than necessary.
He called on the authorities concerned to arrest the situation before it gets out of hand and result in an increase in the price of milled rice.
It was also revealed that most rice mills across the state are really finding it very difficult to keep the business going due to issues surrounding the current fuel scarcity.
Malam Hannafi Alhassan, an operator of a small rice mill in Mariri Kumbotso Local Government of Kano State, said he had to increase the processing charges per bag of paddy to N3,000 from N2,500 due to the hike in the prices of diesel and petrol, as well as its scarcity.
Another small-scale rice mill operator Habu Baffa Kiru said he had stopped milling for the mean time pending the availability of diesel, as he claimed he could not afford to continue milling with the current price of diesel.
The situation is not different in Katsina State as the situation resulted into lean revenue for the millers in recent months.
Alhaji Mustapha Mu’azu Maiauduga, the manager of Beto Rice in Malumfashi, said that unlike before, people were less patronizing their packaged rice ostensibly because of the price.
“The assumption of every Nigerian is that when rice is locally produced and milled, its price has to come down, but unfortunately we cannot sell a 50kg of milled rice less than N22,000 due to surge in the cost of production. Diesel is now over N400 a litre and there is no consistent electricity supply to operate our machines,” he said.
Another rice miller in Funtua, Abdulrazaq Isma’ilm said because of high cost of production they had since resolved to operate as service providers.
“We now don’t mill rice for sale directly here; rather, we mill for individual consumers and rice sellers who bring in their paddy. This, in our consideration, is more profitable to us as we only charge N2,500 per bag of paddy rice. We have regular customers across Faskari, Kankara, Funtua, Bakori and Danja local government areas,” he said.
On whether they operate on diesel or electricity, Abdulrazaq said for the business to be sustained one would be on electricity, otherwise cost of diesel would force the business to fold up.’
Daily Trust on Sunday observed that people from far and near now prefer to go for local rice sections of Dandume, Funtua or Bakori to make choice of the stable instead of going for the packaged one which now costs above N22,000 per 50kg.
Rice millers in Kaduna State are also expressing worry over what they described as high cost of production due to poor and epileptic power supply, as well as the scarcity and high cost of petrol and diesel.
Our correspondent reports that small-scale processors who rely on firewood for the parboiling process of paddy rice say a ban on tree felling in Kaduna State has equally impacted on production cost which has resulted in the high price of rice in the market.
Imam Saidu, who operates a local rice mill in Kaduna, described the situation as sad, saying that rice, one of the major staple foods in Nigeria, is now becoming unaffordable for low income earners.
He said the rice sector, like other agricultural sectors, was debased by security and infrastructural challenges, as well as economic challenges.
“Our farmers are unable to produce the required paddy rice because of the insecurity in most parts of the rice producing states. Now, with the little we are able get from farmers, the cost of processing the rice is now high because our machines work on diesel since the government’s power is inefficient and unreliable, especially at the moment,” he said.
Daily Trust on Sunday gathered that epileptic power supply, coupled with scarcity and high cost of petrol and diesel, has surged the price of rice in the market. Our correspondent gathered that a bag of 50kg of rice which sold at N22,000 late January is now sold at N27,000.
Also speaking in Kaduna, Alhaji Idris Sarkin Alhazan Rigachikun, a local miller said, “We used to process and bag each 50kg of rice at N2,200, but we now do it at N3,000. There is no electricity, so we have fallen back on the generating set, and you know the present situation in Nigeria.”
. . . Bags Outstanding Rice Value Chain Award
by CHIKA IZUORA, Lagos
Stallion integrated rice value chain approach has been bequeathed with the Feed Nigeria Summit “Agro Processor of the Year Award” at the just ended Nigeria Agriculture Awards.
The award, which is its second, after the IBCA-“Outstanding Projects and Business Leaders of the Year Award” recently bestowed on the company in March was in recognition of Stallion Popular Farms and Mills Limited concerted efforts at integrating rice value chain in Nigeria agrarian economy as well as its dogged resolves to humanize farmed rice and self-sustainability in food production.
“We owe this accomplishment to President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership aptitudes and his agrarian-business agenda, Stallion Popular farms and Mills Group Director Hapreet Singh remarked.” He said the farm is leveraging on the policy impetus of the Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda to bring sustainable and scalable growth to farmers.
The farm’s effort to increase cultivated rice yield began in 2007 and has since been at the forefront of paddy agronomists in the country, working tirelessly to enhance rice production through scientific agricultural practices.
Singh, while receiving the award, on behalf of the farm at the occasion in Lagos, said it hopes to increase locally farmed rice to 1.5million tonnes yearly from 450, 000 metric tonnes. He said the farm has already deployed enhanced milling activities and set up more milling facilities through structured farming techniques.
“Our vision has always been to preserve and enhance rice production in Nigeria by ensuring genetic integrity of seeds, encouraging scientific agricultural practices and promoting world-class processing techniques to emerge as industry benchmark for product quality,” Singh said.
The Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, on Tuesday gave reasons why imported rice is still cheaper than locally produced rice, despite government efforts.
Mr. Ogbeh, while responding to questions at a Town Hall meeting in Abuja, said one of the major reasons was that most of the imported rice was subsided by the foreign governments.
He said most of the imported rice are from Vietnam, India and Thailand.
Thailand subsidises the export of rice, the minister said.
He explained that the imported rice arrive at about 9,000 per bag, and are then sold at about N13,000 per bag to consumers unlike the local rice sold at about N16,000 per bag.
Mr. Ogbeh also lamented the interest rates for farming loans.
“Our interest rates in this country is higher that the interest rate in most parts of the world,” he said.
To help meet national demand of around 5.2m tonnes in 2016, Nigeria imported 2.3m tonnes of rice last year, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). This heavy reliance on external sources has seen Nigeria – currently the world’s second-largest importer of the grain after China – import around 17m tonnes of rice in the last five years, with the country spending an average of $5m per day on shipments of the grain, Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture and rural development, told international media earlier this year.
In order to reduce the country’s trade bill and improve self-sufficiency, the government has been working to roll out new training programmes and cultivation techniques to improve yields, as well as lowering the costs of access to credit and equipment.
