The president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi
Adesina, has predicted that the Dangote group
may become the largest exporter of rice in the world by 2021, reports NaijaAgroNet.
Speaking at the Mo Ibrahim Forum in Morocco over the
weekend, Adesina said Africa must focus on agriculture to drive growth and
create jobs on the continent.
“I remember when I was minister of Agriculture in Nigeria.
Aliko Dangote was there, and he was our biggest importer at the time, and he
and I used to have all the time to dialogue,” Adesina said.
“One day, I was in my office, about 10 O’clock, Aliko walks
in, Ngozi was minister of finance. Aliko bangs on my door and said ‘minister I
came to see you’, and I said ‘what are we going to disagree on this time? He said no, I have actually looked at the policies, and the
policies you put in place for import substitution are very right policies. So,
I have changed my business model from being an importer to being a local
producer,” he said.
Adesina narrated the role Dangote played in his happiest day
as a minister in Nigeria.
“I said what exactly are you going to do. He said I will put
in $300 million into producing and processing rice in Nigeria. I said yippee! I
went home, I told my wife, my best day as minister,” he said.
“He comes back three months after that, he says I have
changed my mind, I said ‘what in the world happened?’ He said no, I have
changed my mind from $300 million to a billion dollars.
“If they continue that policy, he would probably be the
single largest producer of rice in the world, in about four years. The reason
why I was so excited about that is that agriculture is cool, agriculture is a
business…agriculture pays.”
Adesina was named Forbes Africa Person of the Year 2013,
while Dangote won the same award in 2014.
It would be recalled that a tripartite agreement put
together by the Dangote Rice limited to create jobs for 16,000 outgrower rice
farmers in Sokoto was recently signed with the Sokoto State government and rice
growers in the country after which he launched the rice outgrowers scheme in
Sokoto.
Aliko Dangote, the Chairman of Dangote Rice Limited, said
he was moved to go into rice cultivation because of the genuine interest of the
Federal government to revive agriculture as the mainstay of the economy, and
reduce importation of foods that could be produced locally.
He lamented that Nigeria consumes 6.5 Meric tonnes (mtn) of
rice which costs the nation over 2 billion dollars annually, pointing out that
it is heartening that the government now has policy direction that encourages
private sector’s active participation in agriculture.
He disclosed then that “In the next three years we want to
produce one million tons of quality rice and make it available and affordable
to the people. We hope to do 150, 000 ha and when we are done, Nigeria will not
have anything to do with importation of rice.
“Dangote Rice outgrowers scheme is committed to creating
significant number of jobs, increasing the incomes of smallholders farmers and
ensuring food security in the country by providing high quality seeds,
fertilizers and agro-chemicals as well as technical assistance on best agricultural
practice to farmers.
"This Scheme will help to diversify the economy,
alleviate poverty and reduce the nation's import bill. The scheme has been
designed as a one stop solution for the rice value chain," Dangote declared.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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