NIGERIA – Sujimoto group, a Nigerian based rice farm estate has partnered with the government to set up a 30,000-hectare rice farm in the state of Enugu in a strategic move to combat food insecurity and foster economic growth in the country.
In Nigeria, rice is the second most consumed cereal after corn and a strategic crop for food security.
Speaking during the launch, Governor Dr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah highlighted that the “Sujimoto Farm Estate” project will also install a paddy processing factory which will be able to produce around 800,000 tonnes of milled rice per year.
According to Governor Mbah, this ambitious initiative is part of efforts to transform Enugu into a thriving US$30 billion economy by 2030.
He underscored that this new agricultural project should help increase rice production, strengthen self-sufficiency and stimulate economic growth in the state.
Once actualized, the project is poised to create over 10,000 jobs, marking a significant milestone in the state’s journey towards becoming the investment capital of Nigeria, Mbah noted.
Dr. Sijibomi Ogundele, the Group Managing Director of Sujimoto Group, expressed confidence in Enugu’s potential to replicate the economic prosperity in the country.
At the moment, however, the project’s investment cost and the schedule of work have not yet been revealed.
USDA recently projected the country’s rice import to reach 2.3 million metric tonnes of rice in 2024, a 10 percent increase from the 2.1 projected in 2023.
Import forecasts for Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, were raised due to stronger-than-expected demand caused by both high domestic rice prices and quality concerns, according to the USDA.
Experts suppose that Nigeria may see the cost of its rice imports for the 2023/24 marketing year outstrip the cumulative N1.08 trillion spent under the Anchor Borrowers Program (ABP) – a scheme that provides farmers with critical funds and inputs needed to boost local production in eight years.
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