Dangote's move into rice cultivation to reduce Nigeria's food imports

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Adesina said Africa must focus on agriculture to drive growth and create jobs on the continent while speaking at the Mo Ibrahim Forum in Morocco.

Adesina recounted his time as Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria and a visit he received from Dangote who endorsed the policies Adesina put in place for import substitution. This lead Dangote to change his business model from being an importer to becoming a local producer. According to Adesina, Dangote planned to put $300m into producing and processing rice in Nigeria only to come back three months later with a plan to increase the investment 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.

Rice outgrowers scheme

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.

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 6.5Mtn of rice which costs the nation over two 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 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 150,000ha and when we are done, Nigeria will not have anything to do with the importation of rice.

“Dangote Rice outgrowers scheme is committed to creating a significant number of jobs, increasing the incomes of smallholders farmers and ensuring food security in the country by providing high-quality seeds, fertilisers, 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 stated.