Rice Farmers Demand For Harvesting Equipment To Boost Production

“Mr SEGUN ATHO,  is the National Deputy President, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN). In this interview with BLESSING OKEZIE, he bared his mind on the need for government to consolidate on its policy on border closure and what rice farmers need to produce enough rice that will feed Nigerians. Excerpts…”

The federal government  closed border  late last year  and it affected the  importation of foreign rice into Nigeria,  what is your view  and experience on this?

I will first of all want to thank federal government especially president Muhammadu Buhari, for protecting Nigeria from influx of foreign rice because if the man has not taken such beautiful step, Nigeria will continue to waste money foreign exchange. Why? If you look at the situation around us, we are breeding unemployment in this country. Now that border has closed, many  people have now woken up and believe that we can feed ourselves  and that is why they are going into farming and going into other activities. This border closure, has also made us realise that Nigeria can feed herself without depending on any country and can also feed West African countries because we are the largest in West African if not the whole Africa.

We are fully  into rice production and our objective is to mobilise the Nigerian farmers to produce enough rice for Nigerians and to empower our young boys and girls, men and women at large to make sure that poverty is eradicated from our society through rice farming.

Nigeria, has a beautiful land that can accommodate everyone and can generate income to everybody and to the government so I see no reason why we should be a dependant and I like one statement Buhari made in 2015. He said let’s grow what we eat and eat what we grow.  If we are eating rice and Nigerian soil is very good for rice, why are we then importing what we can produce? So we are just making mess of ourselves, somebody will go there and bring in expired rice and we think that is the best quality.

One of the problems  Nigerians have with  home grown rice is that it usually gums together when cooked but foreign rice remain in grains even after being  cooked, as such,  people believe foreign rice has better quality  than local rice. What explanation do you have on this?

The reason  people say Nigerian rice is not good is because  they have not had it so good before.  The one that they are importing is bad rice. Some are shipped to Nigeria after  five years of harvest. some after six years and 10 years. I mean the length of time the imported rice stay  in their silos there and by the time they ship them to Nigeria, they will re-label it claiming that it was produced  in  2018 and 2019. And that is why when you don’t season this foreign rice to taste, you can not enjoy it. But look at Nigerian rice, you perceive the aroma while cooking and eating it and if this is the case, then what is our problem?

The border closure will create jobs with the wider value chain that existed under the Agricultural Sector, we want government to maintain that border closure. It must not open it. Nigeria should look inwards. If  countries like China can close their border for 10 years and we have not closed ours for up to two years, what are we complaining about? Look at China today, are they not feeding themselves, are they not exporting to other countries even America is acquiring most of their specs but they will give standards and say this is what they  want and they will produce goods  for them based on the specified standard.

But here in Nigeria, when our people  get to any country to buy anything, they come back with substandard goods. Look at Turkey, and the quality of goods they  produce. But what do we have here in form of rice, you can see with me that we are eating nonsense  and we don’t know what we are eating.

Aside rice, look at the frozen meat they bring to us inform of turkey and chicken, do you know they use formalin to preserve the turkey and it is that same formalin we are using to preserve dead bodies in Nigeria.

Now, the question is, why are we doing this to ourselves eating nonsense, we have 90million acres of land but I don’t think we have used up to  40 percent out of this. I want to advise Nigerians to please kindly wake-up.

Let everybody come to Agriculture. Those of them that studied agriculture and agronomy, let them come, there is space for them to practice what they have learnt, and I promise you that if graduates grow rice three times a year,  they will become millionaires.

Where no institution will provide money for them let them come I guarantee I will provide land for them. They should forget about going out of the country. Buhari should maintain permanent closure of border so that we can produce, all the petrol stations beside the border side don’t  belong to Nigerians. They are  owned by foreigners and they are using them to siphon money out of this country.

Look at petroleum now, look at the border side all the petrol station there don’t belong  to Nigerians it belongs to foreigners and they are using that area to siphoned Nigerian oil, they will not bring it in the day time but at night when they will discharge it all to foreign countries.

What is our population where you are having about 200 filling stations. You can see how they are making nonsense out of Nigeria. So we want to tell government to please look into all these areas. I also want to appeal to government to please provide us with equipments, we need equipments because post harvest crops is most of our problems, we need equipments for harvest, threshing and weaning so that farmers will continue to produce rice.

So that within the space of one year, you plant and harvest several times.  We also want to thank government for providing a platform like anchor borrower program with CBN because our farmers that couldn’t have water pumps  before, now have. In fact, each farmer can now have one. Government has been doing that for us and we want to appreciate the CBN,  government under president Mohammedu Buhari and all the stakeholders that are involved in this anchor borrower program.

Also our national president have been of help to this association because he has been working tirelessly to make sure we enjoy benefits from the federal government in the area of anchor borrower program. Then, to other state governor’s, we want them to procure machines in the southern part of this country so that we can move our forest a little bit for tractor to also generate income. So they can’t just be looking at what we have, no it is not enough.

In specific terms, what do you want state governments to do for farmers in their states?

We want to appeal to state governors to look into the problems of farmers in their domain so that it will be a proof on ground not only on papers that their farmers are producing rice. When we are talking  about infrastructure, we should also talk about food because food security is even important as arm security because if everyone is eating twice or trice a day conveniently,  no body will have the thought of going into arms, our streets will be secured. They are holding security meeting do they also hold food security meeting? By the grace of God,  as small as Lagos State is in  terms of size,  I want to tell you that we have empowered like 200 farmers under this program. We want to move to the mechanised stage so that farmers can harvest and go back to field in time.

Nigerians believe that foreign rice is better than local rice because the local rice gets sour quickly and the issue of pricing, the local rice is as high  in price as the foreign, what do you have to say  about this?

I will not blame those that are talking about quality, it is ignorant. When we started growing rice that is when some people saw what is rice. What is happening to Nigerians is that we have opened our eyes to foreign things that we can’t determine the quality of those rice we are eating, it is what you are using  that you will be proclaiming because they are used to foreign rice, we have more than 7000 species of rice, rice is being developed everyday, the way we develop rice is same way it is  developed in China, so if any one tells you the quality is not good then I don’t know what they are talking about.

The rice they call quality rice I can tell you that it is polished rice. They have extracted so many things from it to produce drugs. If you go to Brazil, because there is oil in rice they use it for biofuel to fuel their vehicle the way they are using sugarcane to produce biofuel. They will now bring the remnant which is chaff which is 70% carbohydrates to us here in Nigeria. They remove zinc, iron calcium, magnesium and others. Is that what you are calling quality rice? Let them cook Nigerian rice, first, the aroma  will show them that this is rice, cook foreign rice and local rice add stew and  leave till tomorrow and you will notice that the local rice will be intact than the foreign rice. Local rice, when grinded in powdered form, can be use for pap. The pap is very healthy for a growing child, it strengthens the bones of a child. So if someone is sitting down and talking nonsense I am not going to be part of that.

Let us now talk about pricing. How much do these farmers sell rice? The problem is from the middlemen, what is the cost of production, in Vietnam,  they sell those expired rice for $150 but the fresh one they eat they sell in between $800 to $1000, so we just started producing. They should be patient with us. The price will soon crash. I appeal to President Buhari not to open the border because many  of our people who suffer chronic diseases and illness. Do you know the cause? Some eat this food and develop stroke. I want to assure you that very soon price will crash because more farmers are emerging.

No body should say that border closure is affecting me. Border closure is promoting me because my business is not in other countries but in Nigeria. Let us stop breeding unemployment  and start building ourselves. China has closed their border for ten years, we have just closed for few months  and people are shouting, don’t you see all those white men they are coming into Nigeria. They too are now looking for job, go to ministry of agriculture in Abuja you will be seeing them because we have the market, we are the largest market of anything in the whole world, we are a dumping ground but they are not doing us well now look at the way they kill our furniture industry a carpenter can produce a furniture here but they will go and bring one nonsense from china. Well, all I will say is that they should be patient, this is just the beginning.

What is your background, did you study agriculture as a course?

I didn’t study agriculture in school, it was a particular woman that introduced agriculture to me  that was how I became a farmer and I’m doing it till date. I have been in this business for more than twenty years. I train people and produce some training materials on my own. I have trained more than enough, the only thing giving me concern is how we can procure equipments for  our farmers. We are trying to leave the rudimentary stage to the mechanised stage. My capacity is about three to four tons.

I farm one hectare every three months in fact, we farm more than that, our aim is if you are a starter we encourage you to farm 0.5 hectare that’s 7 and half plots of land but by the time you harvest then you see how lucrative it is then you can request for one hectare. We have graduates in this sector and some resign from bank jobs to join this sector. Also retires who do not know anything about rice, I train them free of charge and now they are doing well.