The Governor of Cross River State, Prof Ben Ayade says he will convert the entire state into rice farmers, and that the formal commissioning of the Cross River State-owned 10-tonne per hour ultra-modern rice mill located in Ogoja Local Government Area would be performed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The Governor made this known during the test run of the factory where he thanked the contractors for what he described as their diligent commitment to the project.
“The mill is the first of its kind in Africa and I am particularly proud that we have this outstanding world-class vitaminised rice mill in Ogoja Local Government Area of Cross River State,” he said.
Ayade also said the establishment of the rice mill in Ogoja had the potential to make millionaires out of the young farmers from the area.
“I look forward to converting the entire people of the state into rice farmers. This is because the storage capacity alone is about 6,500 tonnes and on continuous production, we have a storage capacity of 240 tonnes per day, at 24 hours operation.
“So if we have 240 tonnes per day, it, therefore, means that even if we are to convert the whole land in Cross River State for rice farming, this factory has the capacity to take all.
“The issue of poverty will come to an end. But you need an aggregate vote that will be made available to farmers to be able to buy, carry and deliver to this factory. So for every local government, we are going to have a supplier to this farm.
“We have a grading system to assess the quality of grain. The Cross River rice seedling factory will supply seedlings to the farmers so we could have consistent quality of grains. We will have people who will buy off the paddy from the farmers.
“We are also going to introduce the Anchor Borrowers programme where key stakeholders will be given funds by the state government and perhaps the federal government to assist them to do large-scale industrial farming like myself,” he said.
Describing operations at the mill, Ayade said, “I have just watched the test operation and it is fully operational. The dream of having the Ogoja rice mill has come to birth today. We have just had a full test run, a pre-commissioning test run from the point of receiving the paddy from the pad, through the pre-cleaning to parboiling stage to the preserving, where it does the destining, taking out the outer shell to the whitener and from where it goes further down the system to absorb the grading and making sure that the grain size is uniform and finally to the bagging line.”
He said the rice also goes through the vitaminisation plant, which process has been tested at the pre-commissioning stage and is fully functional and operational.
On how the factories will be run to ensure their survival, Ayade said, “We are discussing at different levels, just as we have put in place a privatisation council. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, a government finishes a project and it is making it available to the citizens of the state.”