Stakeholder Seeks Support For High Rice Production

The Director of Crystal Gold Mills & Agro-allied in Ekiti State, Mr Adetunji Oluwaseun, has urged the Federal Government to support local rice production with enhanced agro-allied machineries.
Oluwaseun told newsmen in Lagos that the company had the capacity to produce five tons of rice per day or 1,825 tons per annum.
According to him, the company currently produces 2.5 tons of rice per week and given more support of the local rice processors that will  meet the nation’s domestic consumption and for export.
“We process 2.5 tons in a week, but with minor changes to our machinery we can process as much as five tons per day.
“That means 10 tons of the raw paddy, what we get will be 5 tons. Now, we are talking about 10kg of about 500 bags.
“We are turning out 5,000 of 1kg per day. If a company is rolling that out, you can imagine the number of people that we will be reaching out to.
“Those are the areas we are looking forward to improve on.
“As I said, we are young, we are hungry, we want to work for people; we want to serve.
“We want people to recognise that there are still young people with the heart to lift up the country from where we are at the moment.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has projected that rice output in Nigeria and Ghana for 2012 would outpace consumption, resulting in an upward revision of five million tonnes in 2013.
FAO also said that the world rice stock-to-use ratio was forecast to rise to 35.5 per cent in 2013 from 33.6 per cent in 2012.