Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Lagos state governor has mooted the idea of importing paddy for the state to get enough rice paddy to run the Imota Rice Mill in the state. He has said that his government will approach the federal government to get the concession for the import.
The governor made this known during a media chat in Ikeja. He was confident that Imota rice mill is capable of tackling the current inflation in the state, as part of the country, but for the short supply of paddy to feed the mill.
He said, The challenge that we have is feedstock- that is paddies. We have two aggregators- AFEX and Lagos commodity exchange that we have committed to look for paddy for us.”
According to the governor, the development is such a good problem for the state rice mill. And it is a problem that his administration is willing to solve. Did the state plan for the feedstocks that will be needed at the mill? Hear him: One of the things that has happened is that paddy is not easily growable in the Southern part of the country. We have farmland in Ogun, Osun and Oyo states but it cannot meet up with the size and capacity of the mill.
One of the things that we realized is that up north, there are a few issues around paddy. So, for our mill, we are going to be having a conversation with the Minister for Transport and with the federal government. If they can permit us to do a one-off import of paddy for about two vessels. That can take us about 8 to 9 months production of close to 2 million bags of 50kg.”
He however, explained that such a step was not intended to discourage local farmers from producing rice for mills like that of Imota. Rather, the farmers will be encouraged that there is a market for whatever they produced. He said, If we have that exemption, we can use that to encourage the rice farmers to go back to their farms.”
Currently the mill gets paddy locally. For instance, the Governor stated that the state is expecting some paddies from the north through active collaboration with state governors in that part of the country.
As a measure of tackling the food inflation the state promised to begin a 25% discount on Sunday markets across 48 locations in the state.
The governor noted that beneficiaries of the project will be those spending N25,000 and below on food items who would be given a rebate immediately after purchase.
The Imota rice mill is a 2.8 million 50kg bag capacity rice mill commissioned by President Buhari in January 2023 but has failed to produce to capacity owing to lack of paddies among other issues. The mill was built at an estimated cost of N20 billion.
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