Why I fabricated rice milling machines – Kano Engineer

As an engineer, why did you pick interest in rice milling? My name is Engineer Iliyasu Nazifi from Kano, a chemical engineer by profession and a registered member with the Nigerian Society of Engineers. I have been in machinery business ever since I graduated from the university and all along it has been an interesting […]

As an engineer, why did you pick interest in rice milling?
My name is Engineer Iliyasu Nazifi from Kano, a chemical engineer by profession and a registered member with the Nigerian Society of Engineers. I have been in machinery business ever since I graduated from the university and all along it has been an interesting venture which I have no regrets over.
Actually, grain milling has been our family business for years, we have a company called Golden Star Mill which basically deals with wheat and maize milling and also animal feeds processing. However, growing up in such a business oriented family has widened my horizon to, as a matter of expansion, come up with an innovation that will not only increase income but also create a greater avenue for the emergence of more entrepreneurs.
Similarly, with the recent government policy on rice and the zeal rice farmers have shown in taking the challenge seriously, I saw the numerous opportunities the policies could get us. That was how we started looking inward to come up with something that will accommodate the expected vast production of rice paddy. We also figured out that the escalation in the rate of foreign exchange is not helping issues. And so we came up with a solution that will assist small industries operators in the milling circle with something workable.
We did a survey on the traditional methods of milling rice, came up with a much developed and advanced technology that will work based on the local procedures of parboiling from the bottom as against the modern machinery that parboiled from the top.  To achieve that, we have to setup a rice mill to show the world how real our inventions are, we fabricated our machines locally and start milling; we observed how the market accepted our rice wholeheartedly because of the quality we have been producing. That was what gave us the motivation needed, we have started with 5 tons per day, and then upgraded to 10 and now we are planning to go for 50 tons per day.
The good news is that Nigeria has come to accept our inventions as many rice millers from Kebbi, Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa and other places have come to acquire the new technology we have invented.

Is what you initiated an imitation of the foreign milling machine?
No, this is an entirely a different design, my background as a refinery design engineer has accorded me the chance to come up with a new innovation based on the local methodology used in rice milling to fabricate a more advance machine that will suits the process of rice milling using our local varieties.  The irony of it all is that the quality of what we are producing ‘Green Pro’ has been widely accepted.

With recent policy on rice, do you think you can cope with the challenges?
Actually, for a government that says it has redirected its focus from oil to non-oil sector and by looking at the agricultural allocation in the 2016 budget, I must say it is disheartening. However, the farmers are ever willing to do more even though agriculture has been relegated to the back stage. However, if rice is a national priority as we were made to believe, I think it should be given a special priority and if possible create a council just like it was done to sugar. Similarly, there is also a need for the government to introduce more agricultural scheme that will ensure that all our earth dams are put into use.

How accessible are these locally fabricated milling machines?
Though locally fabricated, some of the raw material used such as the stainless steels needs to be imported. However, this did not make it very expensive like the imported ones at least these machines are about 45% cheaper than the foreign ones and that have made it not accessible to individual micro millers, but as a group they can easily access it.

How would you access the Nigerian rice milling sector?
It is growing rapidly, and ready to withstand the test of time. Rice milling is one of the fastest growing sector in Nigeria and I must state here that Nigerian rice farmers are doing their best to see that they have supported the government in sustaining its policy on rice importation.
However, with sustainable policies on ground, rice millers will definitely have field day and the sector will continue to prosper and grow to a higher level.