‘I setup rice mill with N20m loan from Sokoto govt’

What motivated you to establish a rice mill though you were a farmer?There are several reasons responsible for taking that decision. First, I want to have a value chain for my agribusiness and secondly, I realised that the people of the old Sokoto state that include Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states are predominantly farmers. We […]

What motivated you to establish a rice mill though you were a farmer?
There are several reasons responsible for taking that decision. First, I want to have a value chain for my agribusiness and secondly, I realised that the people of the old Sokoto state that include Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states are predominantly farmers. We are into large production of rice and several other crops, vegetables and rearing of animals but we did not have any mill or factory for the processing of our farm produce. I knew very well that processing and good packaging add value to goods, including crops.
 I detest the idea of producing rice here and taking it to some other states to mill then bring it back here to sell. I had the idea and the interest but I did not have the capital until the Sokoto State government gave me N20 million loan through Fidelity Bank which I used to buy all these machines and setup the mill.
How difficult was the process of accessing the loan?
I did not even apply for the loan. In fact, the process of giving me the loan was completed before I even know about it. I met the state commissioner for agriculture at a function and he told me he had been looking for me to tell me that they have approved agric loan for me. I have never applied for any loan and I have never, even in a discussion, told anybody that I wanted loan. But I know that you people have written a lot about my farm; it is possible that was where they saw it. Right there, I told him since you decide to surprise me; I promise not to let you down. I went to Fidelity Bank and opened an account. Few days later, I received an alert from the bank that N20 million has been paid into my account. I did a feasibility study on how to establish this mill. I consulted the Bank of Agriculture and the Bank of Industry where I got useful pieces of advice. I bought these machines in Kano.
Has the state government cared to come and see what you have done with the money?
Yes, the state governor personally visited this mill and saw for himself what I have been able to do. He asked me if I have any other thing I require. I told him of my plans to expand the factory by having a feed mill so as to utilise the husk and other waste being generated from the rice mill. He promised to assist me further. Just yesterday I was told by government officials that the state governor has again approved another N10 million loan for me that is ready for collection.
How do you intend to operate the mill; is it as commercial or for your farm produce alone?
This rice you see us milling now belongs to another farmer. He registered a rice company and printed his bags. When we mill the rice for him, we will package it and he will take it to the market and sell. I also have my registered company and bags that I use to package my rice and sell in the open market. You saw the farmer that requested that he wants to bring 200 bags for milling but I told him to bring 100 bags first. The demand for milling by farmers is very high.
It seems all the machines are using electricity; how are you copping with epileptic power supply?
You can see that we have some electric generators that are making the cost of production so high because of the diesel they consume. But I have contacted the Sokoto Energy Resource Centre and they are working towards turning some of the waste from the mill into energy generation to provide electricity for us. In fact, as a way of encouragement, they promised to give me some of the equipment free of charge and subsidise the cost of others. At the moment, the cost of production is very high because of electricity. That is why in some cases, despite the cost of transportation and Customs duty, some imported food items are cheaper than locally produced ones.
What other things, in terms of machines, do you require for this mill?
You can see that we are drying the rice manually under the sun. We require automatic dryer, additional per-boiler in addition to the feed mill I told you. The process of manual drying is so tasking that when you sun-dry, you must be turning the rice after every 5 to 10 minutes to ensure that every part of it dries at the same time.
Have you done a market survey to know if there will be good market for the animal feed since there are grasses everywhere here?
You know, there are more domestic animals in Niger Republic than here. During the dry season you see their farmers coming here in search of feed for their animals. Feed is in very high demand here and there. I have no doubt; animal feed has very good market here.
We understand there are different varieties of rice seeds in the country. Does the rice mill differentiate them as well?
Rice mill is garbage-in-garbage out. Whatever you feed it with is what it will mill. If you bring long grain, that is what will come out. If you bring the short one it will come out short. People prefer the long grain rice but you know in this part of the country we call each rice variety with its name in Hausa like Jamila, Zawara, Hajji Kusa, Jeep and so on. The mill can only assist in polishing rice and cleaning it but it does not add the quality. When rice is bad from the farm, there is nothing one can do at the mill to improve the quality. Our mill does not have that capacity. That is why we always advice farmers to go for good variety so that they can harvest good rice. The process of harvesting, thrashing and storage of rice before it is taken to the mill also contribute in determining how good the rice will be after milling. Poorly thrashed rice usually comes with a lot of stones and impurities.
What is the capacity of your mill?
It is 1,000 kilogrammes per hour but due to some technical reasons we are not getting up to that yet. For now the mill is operating at half of its installed capacity due to epileptic power supply and the fact that my staff are not used to it. But we are very optimistic that as time goes on, the capacity will be increasing.
What is the cost of a 50 kilogrammes bag of milled rice?
We sell a 50 kilogrammes bag of rice at N8,000 when the unpeeled was N5,000. But you know you need more than 50 kilogrammes of unpeeled rice to mill and get 50 kilogrammes bag of milled rice. People that buy and consume in their houses prefer the locally produced rice that we mill here because it is fresh and has its natural taste of rice unlike the imported rice that is only fine in the face but one cannot say how long it has been kept in stock before reaching Nigeria. By the time we stabilise, I intend to embark on aggressive sensitisation of consumers to understand the nutritional value of the local rice.
 What are the stages of milling rice in this factory?
When a farmer brings his rice to us for milling, the first thing we do after taking stock of the quantity of the rice is to wash it and remove the premature rice that floats on water. I have two tanks that contain 700 kilogrammes each. After washing the rice in the washing tanks, we will then transfer it into the parboiling tanks where we parboil it. It may interest you to note that from the 14 bags of 100 kilogrammes each that the two washing tanks can contain at a time, the waste we remove at the stage of washing is always not less than 100 kilogrammes. By the time the rice gets into the soaking tanks, it is already clean and pure because the dirty must have been washed away. We shall then heat water with this tank and parboil the rice with the water for some hours then we steam it. After steaming then we blow it and then dry it.
We do not have facility for automatic drying; instead, we sun-dry it for a day or more depending on the weather. After drying it, then we pack it to the mill where we feed the De-stoner machine with it for further cleansing and peeling. De-stoner also removes all stones and impunities from the rice then feed the polisher 1 machine. That machine is responsible for removing the entire husk and any leftover impunity. Mind you, polisher 1 cannot polish the rice as expected yet until it passes to the second polisher that will process and bring it out very cleaner. If you see the rice breaking, it means it did not dry very well before been brought for milling. Once the rice is well dried, you will find it long after milling. After that then we proceed to the packing and bagging section. That is the detailed milling procedure in this factory.         
A part from the popular rice that people cook and eat with stew, there is tuwo rice that they use in cooking tuwo shinkafa. Do you mill that one also?
Yes, we mill a lot of it but mainly on request. But our machines can mill it very well. We have been milling it for people and it comes out very clean and attractive.