RICE FARMING IN ABAKALIKI

It’s really sweet to see the excitement on the faces of kids when told they would be having rice for dinner (before the noodles invasion of course).

Sadly, the rice eating excitement wasn’t wholesome for me growing up. The thought of my mum asking for the rice to be manually de-stoned ultimately killed the joy. That’s because my Dad wouldn’t eat any other rice but Abakaliki rice and my mum collaborated. They often tried to educate us on how nutritious it is but who cared, the grains was short and ugly. Heavens be nice to you the day you would grind a piece of stone with a spoon of Jellof rice in your mouth chai! The enthusiasm for the meal would just disappear.

Over the years, this Abakaliki rice has changed. Not just that we don’t have to manually de-stone anymore, the grains are nicer and still nutritious

A rice field in Abakaliki

THE ABAKALIKI RICE 

The Abakaliki rice co-operative office

Ebonyi State indigenes are predominantly farmers cultivating crops such as cassava, yam and of course rice. The topography of the area makes it possible for them to cultivate upland and low land rice at subsistence levels in the past .The Abakaliki Rice Mill was established in 1964 by some individuals who formed a co-operative. Chief Patrick Mbam, the present chairman of the Rice Mill Owners Association, who gave me the history of the place also told me that the mill owners buy rice paddy off farmers and proceed with the processing and sales. This helps to encourage the local farmers who make some money without the added stress of milling. He told me that before now the mills lacked some basic equipment such as the de-stoning machines but with the presence of two at the mills now, manually de-stoning the rice is a thing of the past. All equipment at the mill are owned by members of the co-operative and membership is open to any interested individual.

 

A de-stoning machine at the Abakaliki rice mill

A rice milling machine at the Abakaliki rice mill

 In the Abakaliki rice mills, rice buying is done in a “serve yourself” manner. Once you get into the premises you would observe young men scattered around looking for customers. If it’s your first time at the mill, you may find their services useful or you could decide to walk yourself through the stores. The milled rice would be seen heaped in front of different stores for sale. Most times you could see as much as four heaps in front of a store. These heaps are different varieties of milled rice and they cost differently with the most expensive being the “mast grade” which is popular because of its long grains and other similarities to the foreign rice.

Rice is sold here in bushels (25kg). When you have made your choice of grain and bargained, a 25kg tin is used to measure the rice to your required quantity. You buy a bag and the rice is bagged .You thereafter take the rice to the de-stoning plant, where a lot of patience is needed because most of these rice distributors may have hundreds of bags there for de-stoning. All you need do is to tag your bag, pay for the service, get a receipt and wait for a little while. The process is quite fast and in no time the de-stoned rice would be out and sealed in your bag.

LONG PROCESS?

No doubt it is. In fact the first time I was there, I had to do a critical analysis afterwards. Why would anyone want to pass through such stress just to buy rice and I arrived at these conclusions;

*It is actually cheaper

*You have the chance to select the kind of grains you want

*The rice isn’t overly processed

FOREIGNISH ABAKALIKI RICE?

Yeah, you can actually have it. The Ebonyi State Government in 2013 commissioned three identical state of the art rice mills in the three major rice producing areas of the state. They are called the industrial rice clusters. I got an approval from the State Ministry of Agriculture for a tour in one of the mills at Iboko.

 Iboko is a village in Izzi L.G.A. and home to one of the integrated rice mills. The mill is a large factory house with two big store houses and a borehole. On arrival, I was amazed at the large equipment in the place compared to what I saw at the Abakaliki rice mills. My tour guide Mr Olughu Azu took me round the facility, showing me the equipment and explaining how the mill works. The whole process is mechanized and functions at the push of a button. To summarize all I was told, they just pour in parboiled paddy at one end and at the other end comes the milled, sorted, cleaned, de-stoned and polished rice. Unlike the Abakaliki rice mills that has rice hulls and husks as basic by product, these integrated rice mills have more by products like the rice bran, brewers rice etc. which are still very useful.

Rice bran

There is another large rice factory in Ikwo, The Ebony Agro that produces the popular Ebony rice. This integrated mill was established under the rice intervention fund by the Federal ministry of Agriculture and the Bank of Industry in 2014, a financial intervention that was set to be used to fund the establishment of 13 integrated rice mills and 10 cassava mills in different parts of the country. It currently runs in a private public partnership.

DEAR POLISHED RICE LOVERS,

According to the training manual on rice processing by Damian Ihedioha PhD, the term “polished rice” refers to milled rice that has gone through polishers that remove loose bran adhering to the surface of milled rice and improves its translucency. Polished rice has lost most of its B-vitamins, some proteins and minerals .Rice millers are however servants to the public and the public increasingly demand products that are white and have a bland neutral taste.

Polished and brown rice

Nutritionists qualify brown rice as an excellent source of manganese and a good source of the minerals selenium and magnesium. The complete milling and polishing that converts brown rice into white rice destroys 67% of the vitamin B3, 80% of the vitamin B1, 90% of the vitamin B6, half the manganese, half the phosphorus, 60% of the iron and all of the dietary fiber and essential fatty acids. By law in the United States, fully milled and polished white rice must be enriched with vitamins B1, B3 and iron. But the form of these nutrients when added back into the processed rice is not as in the original unprocessed version and at least 11 lost nutrients are not replaced in any form even with the rice enrichment…………WOW

 

Bags of polished rice for sale

 MY TWO KOBO

The biggest issue is that these integrated mills are designed to mill 5 tons of rice per hour. That is a lot. Even with all the agricultural programs set up by the state government to improve rice farming, the output is not enough. Paddy has to be sourced out of state usually from the north yet it’s still not enough to keep the mills running to full capacity hence they are underutilized. It is so sad to know that we are not cultivating enough to feed ourselves as a nation. A lot still has to be done in the agricultural sector of our economy especially in rice farming. 

* Although we are not producing enough rice to feed ourselves, I think the importation of processed rice and paddy should be banned because we have potential. The role of government is to make and implement these policies. No business man would want to invest money in a business that wouldn’t yield profit. Imagine Nigerians consuming only Nigerian grown rice, everyone would want to be a rice farmer. None of these so called agricultural reforms would make sense if people still have the choice of buying foreign rice. Local industries processing and bagging foreign grown rice as local rice should be cautioned.

*Buy made in Nigeria. Encourage our farmers and local businesses by buying Nigerian produce and products. If there is a large market for our produce, there would be more investment and more jobs would be created.

*Although the main objective of rice processing is to produce whole head rice, it is obvious that the processing leads to high percentage of by products which may end up as waste if not properly harnessed. The rice hulls/husks which compromise of 25% of rice wastes has 101 uses for both agricultural and industrial purposes. Why are there mountains of them wasting at the Abakaliki rice mills? Can’t small adjunct industries that would use these husks as major raw material be set up in the state?

Hills of rice husk at the Abakaliki rice mill

 *Appreciate every grain. Had no idea before now that rice farming and processing is this tasking, from cultivation to processing. Can’t believe all it takes to have one clean grain. God bless all farmers.

Parboiling rice paddy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would love to thank all the people that assisted me with gathering information for this article, Elder Steve Orogwu, the permanent secretary, Ebonyi State ministry of agriculture; My Dad, the rice expert Chief I.C Alaka PhD; Eng. Nduka, the mill engineer; Mr Nwoguzor Monday and Mr Olughu Azu, my tour guide.