President, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote has said he remains relentless in pushing his plan to invest heavily in rice farming in five states of the federation.
On August 8, 2014, Africa’s richest man, Dangote had signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with the Federal Government of Nigeria to invest $1 billion in commercial rice farming and modern integrated rice mills.
According to the farming plan released during town hall meetings with some host communities, it was revealed that Dangote Rice farming Limited, the rice project at Kaffin Hausa had a five year plan to achieve between 175,000 and 200, 000, hectares of rice grown twice a year.
Management of the Company, led by Alhaji Mohammed Bello said the Dangote Rice project has the objective of becoming the leaders in rice farming in the world and also boosting the Nigerian economy, encouraging self sustainability and import substitution in rice.
He said the that company was set to reduce importation of rice into Nigeria by investing to become the largest farming operation in the world by 2020 with excess of 150,000 hectares of land spread around three to five states.
Dangote Rice Company is expected to produce and sell one million tons of high quality parboiled rice within the next five years and at the same time support and develop Nigerian rice farmers through the out-grower plan that will generate employment.
The states selected for the large scale rice farming and processing are Edo, Jigawa, Kebbi, Kwara and Niger States.
The communities of these states have expressed satisfaction and delight at the choice of their areas for the gigantic project with Dangote confirmed to cultivate 600 hectares of land for commercial rice farming by November.
The Jigawa state government was largely excited at the Out-Grower part of the plan that would see Dangote Rice helping farmers with implements to cultivate and grow rice which would also be bought from them by Dangote rice.
This project, the state government said, would complement its agenda of job creation and poverty reduction at the grassroots in the state.
Based on specifications, a multi-million dollar worth state of the art installment for the commencement of the rice project is expected in a location in Kaffin Hausa local government area of Jigawa State for the project with potentials of thousands of direct and indirect job opportunities.
The management of the Company has expressed appreciation to the government of the state for its willingness to come to the aid of the company to ensure a smooth take off of the project.