High Quality Grains And Other Consumables

 After several decades  of Nigerians dependence on importation of high quality grains and other 

consumables (that could be produced eaily in Nigeria, in a right senviroment), Nigeria, the giant 

of Africa has  witnessed considerable depletion of  it’s foreign exchange by food import. Just 

recently, the  former  Hon. Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina  and (thecurrent 

President of the African Development Bank ADB )put the food import between 2007 and 2010 

alone  (a period of 3 years) at  a staggering  N98 trillion or US$628 billion. This is in spite of 

the fact that Nigeria has  very favorable ecologies for rain fed lowland, irrigated lowland as well 

as upland rice production. 

The Total potential land for irrigated rice production is estimated at 1.6 million hectares out of 

which only 47, 798ha is available. Since 2003, the Federal Government has been desirous to 

make Nigeria self sufficient in rice production. It has pursued this goal by reviewing all the 

previous efforts in rice production and putting in place a project the Presidential Initiative on 

Rice that will produce 15 million ton of paddy or 9 million ton of milled rice at the end of the 

project life in 2008. In producing the blue print for achieving this goal, it was observed that 

lowland as well as irrigated lowland will play a pivotal role and all existing irrigation  schemes in 

Nigeria, most of which had been abandoned should be rehabilitated and made available for rice 

cultivation. Estimated national demand for rice is put at 5.2 million ton per annum. Production 

is estimated at 3.3 million ton leaving a demand gap of  1.9 million tons which is imported with 

the attendant drain on foreign reserve. This gap has continued to increase relative to demand. 

The National Rice Development Strategy produced in 2010,  put national paddy production in 

2007 at 3.4 million tons and  a projection of 13.27 million tons for 2018. The Nigerian rice 

sector is plagued with the following difficulties: 

  The rice value chain is highly fragmented from production to marketing;

  It lacks an industrial demand to drive the chain e.g. breweries for sorghum, 

pharmaceuticals for cassava and textiles for cotton. The big mills which were supposed 

to drive the value chain were run by rice merchants who took advantage of Nigeria’s 

inconsistent policy to focus on brown rice importation to the detriment of locally 

produced paddy; 

  High production cost;

  Poor quality of the product, hence poor competitiveness with imported rice.

It is as a result of this findings that we at  JIA RICE MILLS  are determined to  produces 

affordable  parboiled rice with low glycemic index manufactured from the best rice variety.  JIA

Rice Mills  intend  to provide a premium rice brand for the health  conscious consumers in 

Nigeria and beyond