Given the bountiful harvest that is being recorded by farmers during this year’s dry season rice farming, Kebbi State has become a new haven to conventional, local millers and rice traders from Sokoto, Kano, Zamfara, EbonyI, Lagos, Maiduguri, Niger and other parts of the country. Also it has continued to witness the influx of rice buyers from Niger Republic, Benin and other neighbouring countries.
Because of this the price of paddy rice has jumped up. Farmers now charge between N10,000 to N12,000 for a bag of paddy rice in the state. Under the Anchor Borrowers arrangement, government is expected to buy a bag of paddy rice from the registered farmers at the rate of N113,000 per ton. However, they are now selling to the third buyers at the rate of N10,000 to
N12,000 per bag.
When our correspondent visited some rice farms around Birnin Kebbi, Augie, Bunza, Argungu and Yauri areas of the state, some of the farmers who spoke to us could not hold their excitement while narrating their success story. Alhaji Sahadi Augie is the Chairman of the Rice Farmers Association in the state. In words laden with excitement, he said “Do you know that from April to this time millers and other rice traders from Sokoto, Kano, Zamfara, Ebony, Lagos, Maiduguri, Niger and others have been coming in trucks and trailers to buy rice here. The good thing is that our farmers are still on the field planting rice, so the harvest will continue till October this year. Given this unprecedented success recorded in this year’s harvest across the state, Kebbi would not only meet the rice needs of the country, but within a short time that of West Africa.”
He added “We are lucky the weather was favourable, the input that was given to the farmers was effective , and it has assisted greatly in raising the yield during this year’s harvest. I must say that the harvest was very good for us. It has never been like this before. I am very optimistic that we will surpass the 1 million metric tons target very soon. This is because this year we harvested rice in Kebbi in the way we have never harvested it before. It was really a bumper harvest. You realize that under the Anchor Borrowers programme 70,000 farmers were engaged to produce rice in the state. Each of them was given the required inputs to cultivate one hectare of rice farm. Under the scheme there was a programme carved out for rice millers like Labana and Humza from Kano, to engage an additional eight thousand farmers, so in all 78,000 farmers were engaged at small scale level to produce rice for the state. These are not the only rice farmers that we have. Kebbi has over 300,000 rice farmers, even though they are not captured under this programme, they are also producing rice on their own.”
The federal government has invested N15 billion on this year’s rice/wheat farming in Kebbi State. Apart from the 78,000 small-scale rice producers in the state, there are other 1,700 large scale ones that were not captured under the rice production programme.
Speaking in the same vein a rice farmer in Argungu, Muhammed Abdullahi said the huge harvest being recorded by the farmers was expected. “More than before, everybody is now involved in rice farming. Don’t forget the entire River Niger valley area in Kebbi North is 11,600 kilometer square of irrigable land. It was estimated to be about 120,000 hectares of irrigable land along the river Niger valley ,and Kebbi has over 500,000 hectares of Fadama land. We have over 250 members of the water user’s association who are entirely farmers along the flood plain area. The Anchor Borrowers scheme has really improved our rice farming, and it might not be long before we start feeding the other West African countries.”
Augie explained that the initial agreement between government and farmers was that once they are given the loan, fertilizer, generator and pumping machines, they are to pay back by selling rice to government. “However, the influx of buyers, local and conventional millers from all over the country, in large numbers and buying in large quantities, has brought about high increase in the price of paddy rice. With this development, farmers felt they would be shortchanged should they sell to government at the initially agreed price. This made us to change our agreement. Now farmers have the option of either paying back to government in cash or by paddy rice. This is to safeguard them from being shortchanged and as well defaulted. Under the Anchor Borrowers arrangement government is buying from farmers at the rate of N113,000 per ton, but farmers could sell to the third buyers at the rate of N9,000 to N10,000 per bag. We cannot give the exact number of tons of rice that we have produced now because harvesting is still going one,but between 1.1 to 1.2 million tons is our possible target.”
He continued “I can hardly find a word to commend facilitators of this rice programme. For several years before now we had been importing rice into this country at the rate of one billion naira per day, whereas we could produce it within the states. We were making farmers of other countries to make money while we are poor. Before now there were moves to do something like this, but the policies were inconsistent.But this time we are lucky both the president and our governor are determined to address the issue.We will also go all out to make sure this programme on rice production succeeds. We can’t quantify the kind of economic advantage it has brought to many farmers and rice traders in the state.”
Alhaji Muhammed Garba Dandiga is the Commissioner for Agriculture and Chairman of the Committee on Agricultural Programme in the state. He said “Suru area alone is about 40 kilometres in spread. Some farmlands there are over 15,000 hectares. We have locations like that in more than 10 places where we are doing irrigation farming. This has greatly boosted this year’s rice harvest in the state. It is not our effort but it is that of God and those of the federal government and Central Bank of Nigeria who gave us the opportunity. If we reach our climax, we will not only feed Nigeria but the entire West Africa.”
While telling her story, Hajiya Hadiza Abdullahi, one of the women farmers in the Argungu area said “This is my tenth year in rice farming. Before my husband died we were doing this together, I was helping him in the farm, but now the responsibility is mine. Rice farming is now much better than it was in the past. I was able to achieve a lot in this year’s harvest. The incentives given to me have helped to increase my yield and production capacity. I farm on 5 hectares of land and with this harvest I am expecting over 600 bags of rice.
When I was to start, government gave me a generator, fertilizer, pumping machines, faro 44 seeds and money. You can see I am getting old, I am being assisted on the farm by my three children but it has been good. It is a bumper harvest for me this year.”
Her farmer friend, Halimatu Muhammed said “I started rice farming about 14 years ago. The farming method has changed now, compared to how we used to do it in the past. What we are witnessing in rice farming now in Kebbi has never happened before. During this year’s dry season farming I harvested over 200 bags of rice. If I get more money I could produce more than 1,000 bags of rice.”
Bashiru Hassan is one of the farmers excited by the bumper harvest. “I just finished harvesting my rice. I am so happy over the yield and I have started preparing for another planting season. The rice I just harvested was on three hectares of land. I am expected to get over 100 bags of rice from it, but I got 60 bags due to the problems I encountered on the varieties of seeds that I planted. Some did well while some did not. But I thank the Almighty it was a good yield after all. I think the little problem I had was because of my inexperience in rice farming. This was my first time of planting rice even though I started farming in 1982. I was planting groundnut, maize and millet before I ventured into rice farming, but I have learnt well now. The next farming season would be different. I planned to give Labana Mills 30 bags, government 20 bags and I will sell the remaining 10 bags to private buyers. I was told the price is now between N9,000 to N10,000.This price may soon go up because there are many buyers and millers from other states and neighbouring countries, and many of them are presently in Kebbi. We really thank government for closing the border to rice importation. It will help to boost rice production and everybody will be happy.”
Hajiya Hauwa Usman is one of the women rice farmers at Harasawa rice farm area in Birnin Kebbi “This is my first time of venturing into rice farming. I was into Cassava farming. When I was growing up I used to follow my parents to the farm, because that was what they were doing. So when I got married I still feel the urge to farm. When my son decided he wanted to go into rice farming I decided to back him. We were given this farm land to grow rice, and today we are happy. We thank God for making the harvest a success. As you can see we are still harvesting but it is with joy. If we can get another land we would love to do more than this, though we had problem with the seeds we were given initially. While some take four months, others take six months to harvest. I planted on one hectare of land and we are expecting nothing less than 15 to 20 bags of rice in this harvest. I would love to do rice farming again, but my fear now is that the person who leased this land to me might also want to use it for farming, because everybody is now going into rice farming.”
Another rice farmer, Bashir Muhammed Nasarawa said “This harvest means a lot of things to me. I ventured into rice farming this year. I did the registration to participate in the Anchor Borrowers programme in 2015 through the Bank of Agriculture. With this harvest I realize I can no longer rely on anybody again. I can rely on myself doing the rice farming. I am more than happy doing it. After this harvest I will continue rice planting immediately. I am expecting over 25 bags of rice in this harvest. I now have the experience .I believe I will do a lot better in the next farming season. I just hope to get a bigger land, at least about five hectares to plant rice.”