Ministry Of Agriculture partners on Agriculture Intervention fund #nigeria

Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has
signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU with the
Bank of Industry, BoI for the establishment of 10 rice milling
and six cassava processing plants at the cost of N13.6
billion, to be sited in some states of the country.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi
Adesina signed on behalf of the federal government, while
the BoI managing director/chief executive, Mr. Rasheed
Olaoluwa signed for the bank, at a ceremony held at the
ministry's headquarters in Abuja.
Adesina, who said the agreement underscored the
seriousness of President Goodluck Jonathan on the
development of agriculture in the country, disclosed that the
plants would be sited in Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue,
Ogun, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Kogi and Zamfara States.
The minister explained that each of the integrated rice mills
has 36,000 metric tonnes capacity with a total capacity of
360,000 metric tonnes that would be established through
the BoI.
He added that the six high quality cassava processing
plants, with total capacity of 180,000 metric tonnes, earlier
approved by the Federal Executive Council, FEC would be
sited in Abia, Cross River, Delta, Ogun, Ondo and Nasarawa
States.
According to the minister, the rice mills and the cassava
processing plants are to be operated by the private sector,
while the government's role is facilitation and regulation of
policies to encourage farmers and boost local processing of
the products.
Adesina added that over six million farmers have benefited
from high quality rice varieties and have been able to
produce additional seven million paddy rice in the last three
years.
He said the initiative was taken having found that Nigeria
didn't have enough mills despite the abundant production of
rice and cassava, which processing could not be handled by
the private sector alone.
The minister commended the bank over its recently
announced N5 billion fund to support Small and Medium
Enterprises, SMEs dedicated to processing of agricultural
products in Nigeria.
Earlier, the BoI managing director had explained that the
idea to fund the project at a single digit of five per cent was
to enable the government advance its already successful
agriculture transformation agenda.
Olaoluwa assured that the 16 processing plants would be
established in the next few months, adding that when
operational fully, they would reduce the amount of rice being
imported into the country.
He noted with delight that Nigeria's food import, according
to the minister has dropped from $6.9billion in 2009 to $
4.3billion in 2013, hoping that the country would soon
become the net exporter of food.
According to him, the fund was designed to enable BoI,
being Nigeria's leading development bank, play its role of
encouraging other financial institutions to follow, assuring
of successful implementation of the project.
Furthermore, he explained that loans under the fund,
expected to help in creating more jobs, would be granted at
single digit of nine per cent interest rate per annum and
would run for 10 years including three years of moratorium
period.