A farm division of Stallion Conglomerate, Popular Farms and Mills Limited, says it plans to increase its locally farmed rice from 450,000 metric tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes annually, using integrated rice value chain and enhanced milling activities.
Its Group Director, Mr. Hapreet Singh, stated this in Abuja while receiving an IBCA’s award conferred on the company for its role in local rice production.
A statement by the Stallion group obtained on Thursday quoted Singh as saying, “Popular Farms and Mills Limited will leverage the impulse provided by the Federal Government through its transformation agenda to increase local rice production to 1.5 million tonnes from 430,000 metric tonnes annually.”
He said the company’s vision was to preserve and enhance rice production in Nigeria by ensuring genetic integrity of seeds, encouraging scientific agricultural practices and promoting world-class processing techniques in order to emerge as industry’s benchmark for product quality.
According to him, Popular Farms and Mills has established collection centres across rice producing states such as Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Niger, Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi to not only help farmers embrace modern farming techniques but also focus on distributing farm inputs through farmers cooperatives and associations to ensure rice revolution in Nigeria.
The establishment, Singh added, would safeguard timely provision of certified seeds, fertilizers, advisory irrigation and crop management as well as buy back mechanism to help farmers get good and profitable yields, especially during harvest.
“Stallion has established integrated agricultural operations such as world-class rice mills at strategic locations to promote milling and paddy cultivation in captive areas to make Nigeria self-sufficient in rice production,” the Stallion director said.
Commenting on the IBCA’s Outstanding Projects and Business Leaders of the Year Award to the company, he said Stallion Farms owed the accomplishment to President Muhammadu Buhari’s quality leadership and agribusiness agenda encouraging agrarian backward integration.
Singh also thanked IBCA (Inside Business Commendation Award) for creating a platform to acknowledge real positive change makers in the agric sector.
A former Chairman of Economic Summit and Chief Executive Officer, Inside Business Magazine, Sam Ohuabunwa, who presented the award applauded Popular Farms and Mills for displaying commitment towards Federal Government’s concerted agenda in rice production.
