A Thai consortium has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) to invest in the local production of rice for export in the next eight months.
This partnership was necessitated by the Nigerian rice revolution and a drastic drop in rice importation from Thailand from more than 600,000 metric tonnes to 20,000 metric tonnes annually.
National President of the association, Aminu Goronyo stated this in an interview with Daily Trust in Abuja.
Goronyo said that the Thai consortium was in Nigeria in order to invest in the country’s rice industry to establish rice processing, packing facilities and support farmers on how best they can cultivate, process and package rice for the local and international market.
“We have achieved self-sufficiency in rice production, and in the next two production circles, which is about 8 months, Nigeria will start exporting rice to our neighboring African countries.”
“Already we are no longer importing rice massively from Thailand that is why they are here so that we can sign an MoU to enable them to deploy their machinery to begin the processing rice to support this presidential agenda because we are no more importing,” he said.
Also speaking, Dr Shah Siraji, leader of the Thai consortium delegation to Nigeria stressed that the Nigeria rice production initiative was doing excellent because the country needed to be self-sufficient in rice.
