Senate Passes Rice Council Bill

The Senate, on Wednesday, passed a bill seeking to establish National Rice Development Council, expecting it to save Nigeria about $2bn annually from rice importation and improve foreign exchange earnings.

The passage followed the consideration and adoption of the report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the bill.

The Chairman of the committee, Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa-West), in his presentation, said the bill seeks to establish a council that will lead to a comprehensive development of the rice sub-sector and organisation of the stakeholders to enhance local production of the food.

Abdullahi added that the establishment of the council would transform the activities of rice farmers, processors, millers, researchers, marketers and other important stakeholders across the entire rice value chain, particularly the clusters of smallholder rice farmers and small-scale millers spread all over the country.

The senator said, “With our natural comparative advantage in the area of rice production as a country, Nigeria should consider the need to put in place a National Rice Development Council and a fail-safe comprehensive national rice development roadmap that will guide us not only into a regime of self-sufficiency in production, but also for export purposes, employment generation for our teaming youth and growth of our economy.

“The Nigerian rice industry exists in abstract as there appears to be no form of coordination in the absence of a properly structured rallying point.”