Japan donates urea fertilizer to Ethiopia

 Anthony Nwakaegho/NaijaAgroNet

Japan has donated over 92,000 tonnes of urea fertiliser valued at valued at 490 million Japanese yen to Ethiopia based upon the exchange of notes signed between the two countries in December 2012 to complement Ethiopian government efforts to increase crop production.

The Japanese Ambassador to Ethiopia Hiroyuki Kishino while making the donation said that Japan was pleased to play a modest role in mitigating the existing supply-demand gap of fertilizer through its Grant-in-aid Scheme, KR II.

Kishino noted from that the fertilizer would contribute to improving the people’s livelihoods and facilitate the Ethiopian efforts being carried out to achieve the agricultural targets stipulated in the GTP.

“In view of the dominant role of agriculture in the Ethiopian economy and the projected average annual growth rate for agriculture of 8.6 per cent for five years, agriculture has continued to be a priority sector in Japan's ODA policy toward Ethiopia.

“Food security, which includes agricultural and rural development as well as water supply, is one of the two main pillars of Japan's ODA policy in Ethiopia together with industrial development. Japan would continue to support smallholder farmers so that they can increase productivity in agriculture,” the Japanese ambassador said.

 NaijaAgroNet

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Quarra Rice Mill targets 30,000 tonnes paddy rice

  Anthony Nwakaegho/NaijaAgroNet

Quarra Rice Mill, one of the country’s largest rice processing mills which has an annual capacity of 30,000 tonnes of paddy rice is set to add pep to the Nigeria’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) to meet the rapidly growing domestic rice demand.

 NaijaAgroNet discovered that the mill which is located in Tsaragi, Kwara State is one of the country’s largest rice processing mills and is expected to process 150,000 tonnes per year by 2018.

The mill which is operated by Quarra Rice Limited would have output of parboiled rice and rice flour sold domestically to help alleviate food security and serve as substitute for expensive imports.

The United States Department of Agriculture reports that the estimated level of import of rice in Nigeria stands at 2.7 million tons of rice per annum, while Nigeria produces 2.85 tons of milled rice and 4.524 million tons of paddy rice per year.

At the commissioning of the mill, recently, the Governor of  Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed was quoted as saying that “it was alarming that Nigeria continued to spend about $2 billion annually on importation of roughly 2 million metric tons of rice, wasting scarce foreign exchange and stunting growth of local agriculture, while accelerating the growth of foreign economies.”

On his part, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Adewunmi Adesina, who was represented by Executive Director of National Centre for Agricultural Mechanisation. Ike Azogu said that 9 million metric tons of food was added to the nation’s domestic food supply in 2012/2013, which is an increase of 80 percent more than the annual target of 5 million metric tons.

“Food imports declined by N857 billion by the end of 2012; for example, the nation’s import bill for wheat, rice and sugar was down by $3 billion in 2012. Agric exports expanded by 822,000 metric tons in 2012, as the sector’s contribution to non-oil exports expanded by N759 billion,” he said.

*Additional report from Businessday

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