Lagos To Commission Imota Rice Mill  – Commissioner 

The Lagos State Government has assured that the 32-metric tons per hour Rice Mill in Imota, Ikorodu division, will be ready for inauguration in 10 weeks.
The State Commissioner for Agriculture,  Ms Abisola Olusanya, who gave the assurance in an interview with The Tide’s source recently  in Lagos, said the contractors have started test running the mill.
Reports say that there are 16 silos in the mill with a combined capacity of 40,000 metric tons, each having 2,500 metric tons.
The mill was built with a capacity to produce 2.8 million bags of 50kg bags of rice yearly, while generating 1,500 direct jobs and 254,000 indirect jobs.
Olusanya said that the Special Adviser to the Governor on rice, Dr Rotimi Fashola, would ensure the completion by July.
“We are commissioning by June/July or end of July. Within the next 10 weeks, that place will be ready for commissioning.
“The special adviser is working towards that and they were still there and have started test running.
“Paddy is already there. we have rice paddy. Thousands of tons are there. I can’t ascertain the figure but what I know is that the silos are being filled right now with paddy”, she said.
She also spoke on whether the mill would crash the increasing cost of rice in Nigeria, adding that such could only occur if the government was in full control from production, processing and marketing.
The Commissioner also said that although getting the paddy at cheaper price might crash the price, the security challenge in parts of the north also posed a great challenge.
“Right now, we are in just the processing part which is the middle labour.If the price at which paddy is being procured is not low enough to crash it except you’re asking for a subsidy which is not sustainable
“Which means that back in the north, how suitable is the environment for them to actually cultivate and grow rice.
“If right now, there is a lot of issues in the north which border around banditry and all of those things, it is going to affect a lot of people that can actually farm.
“It is going to affect the quantity of paddy they can get and obviously if there is a scarcity of paddy itself as a raw material, prices will be jacked up”, she said.