Rice farming and the bridges at Natsini

I travelled to Argungu and from there to Birnin Kebbi to escape the boredom of Zaria shutdown by ASUU strike since July over the non-implementation of the 2009 ASUU-Federal Government agreement. So in order to escape, I decided to go to a place where I could engage in some physical labour and to also do […]

I travelled to Argungu and from there to Birnin Kebbi to escape the boredom of Zaria shutdown by ASUU strike since July over the non-implementation of the 2009 ASUU-Federal Government agreement. So in order to escape, I decided to go to a place where I could engage in some physical labour and to also do some deeper thinking over my personal life.
So I travelled to Natsini where I am trying to cultivate rice. Let me, however, point out that to get to Natsini one has to cross six big bridges. A small village of about 5,000 people located on the fringes of River Sokoto just a stone throw from the site of the Argungu International Fishing Festival.
The six bridges at Natsini stand as a testimony to how civil infrastructure could stimulate and promote both social and economic development. For at least seven decades before these bridges were constructed, the vast agricultural potential and commerce remained closed. But since the construction of the bridges was completed around 2003, the potential seems to be opened. In our talk with Alhaji Abdullahi Zuru, the erstwhile Special Adviser (Media) to the then Governor of Kebbi State Adamu Aliero, I learnt that it was Aliero who, as the governor of the state, lobbied the Federal Government under Obasanjo to construct the six bridges. The work finally got done and the rice fields are now accessible.
 I told Abdullahi Zuru that I knew about the bridges and how they positively impacted on especially the production of rice in the flood plains of (Fadama) in the Natsini area. In fact, I told him that I was a beneficiary having bought a rice farm there recently.
I arrived at the decision to buy the rice farm after I read an article entitled Desert Blooms in a 1959 edition of Nigeria Magazine on ‘The Sokoto Mechanised Rice Scheme’ which was established in 1949 and operated on the Sokoto and Rima river flood plains which stretches through Sokoto,  Argungu and Gwandu areas covering a territory of 250 miles.
After reading the article I concluded that incentive, in the form of government’s intervention, will never develop a viable and sustained rice production in the area, I however believe that unrelenting hard work and commitment on the part of farmers can make a difference.
When I told Abdullahi Zuru about what I was trying to do with the farm he said that he had good news for me. So I listened while he told me about the Labana Rice Mills and its initiative of promoting large scale rice production all over Kebbi State. Zuru who is also the General Manager of the Labana Rice Mills informed me that the work of installing the rice milling machine was nearing completion.
Located at Harasawa, two kilometers off Sani Abacha Road from Birnin Kebbi, the capital of Kebbi State, the rice mill has the production capacity of 18 metric tonnes of rice per hour or 216 metric tonnes per day. Already the company has started preliminary work for the recruitment of factory workers hoping to meet the deadline for the take-off of production before the end of the year 2014.
The company also has plans in the pipeline to do a mass recruitment of farmers who would serve as ‘out growers’ to supply the mill with the rice it will need for thrashing, milling and packaging all year round. He said that right now the mill is putting 500 hectare-farmlands for trial growing of rice but explained that the company had plans for expansion which included acquisition of more farmland all over the state and the involvement of more independent rice growers in the factory’s out-growers’ pool. The mill’s projected target of production is at least half of the total potential of 350,000 metric tons per annum which, as feasibility studies have shown, Kebbi State to possesses.
Zuru said another interesting angle of the initiative is the factor of the USAID markets. Under the auspices of USAID, farmers are encouraged to form cooperatives on the basis of which members of the cooperatives could receive training on extension services, and technical know-how regarding new innovations and techniques of rice production. Interestingly, the company has recruited 12 graduates indigenous engineers to whom the operation of the factory will be handed over when the work of the expatriates is completed.
Abdullahi Zuru also informed me that the Labana rice production factory is trying to enter into some kind of partnership with the promoters of the USAID market in order to make the initiative more widespread and effective in all the rice producing areas of the state. “We are working at a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the USAID markets which will enable us to get in touch with more farmers who are beneficiaries of the USAID markets training” according Abdullahi Zuru.
So, for me, who is taking up rice farming more than just a hobby, I look forward to the realisation of the Labana dream.

Mohammed can be reached on [email protected]