NAN-AE-6
Equipment
By Chukwuemeka Opara
Abakaliki, Oct.25, 2016 (NAN) The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), under its Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP), is to procure scaling equipment for Ebonyi rice millers, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
Mr Sunday Ituma, the State Programme Coordinator (SPC), disclosed this on Tuesday in Abakaliki, during a Quality Control and Standardisation of Measurement programme organised for millers at the Abakaliki Rice Mill Ltd.
According to him, the measure is to increase the capacity of the millers and make them attuned to standardised ways of measuring rice.
“The procurement would be made under our matching grant component at the ratio 70–30 per cent procurement rate per equipment.
“This implies that IFAD-VCDP would contribute 70 per cent of the ‘weight and measure equipment’ while the rice millers would contribute 30 per cent.
“We intend to make them embrace the paradigm shift from the usage of bushel measuring method to standardise rice measurement.
“A bushel is supposed to contain 100 cups of rice but the ones in use at the mill does not measure to such number of cups and this makes the customers feel short-changed,” he said.
He commended the millers for embracing the new methods and urged them to submit their procurement plans to IFAD-VCDP.
Mr Uchenna Orji, State Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources said that the practice would enhance the millers’ marketing capabilities and enable them secure customers confidence.
Orji represented by Mr Emmanuel Uche, Director of Engineering Department in the ministry, noted that the milers’ produce would thus attain the same measurement standard obtained in other places.
“The measure would also eliminate the ambiguity of constructing bushels, as the ones used at the mill measures 22.4kg of rice instead of the standardised 25kg.
“The same applies to rice packaging because some bags measures 80 or 90 kg but in most cases, its contents are sold to farmers as 100kg.
He advised the farmers to procure their own weighing scale, noting that modern processing rice mills deals on tonnes for effective standardisation.
Mr Kennedy Esinulo, IFAD-VCDP Marketing Development Adviser, urged the millers to embrace the practice to make their produce compete favourably to others around the world.
“The foreign rice purchased by Nigerians was all produced in the country because the producers have over 300 and 500 hectares of rice farms in Nasarawa and Benue.
“They polish, package the rice in the country and call them foreign rice as Abakaliki Rice for instance, has a high demand rate in South Carolina, U.S.,’’ he said.
Mr Joseph Ununu, Chairman of Abakaliki Rice Limited, remarked that the members have embraced the measuring method despite currently using the manual measurement forms.
“The method will assist in standardising our produce, especially with our procurement of a state-of-art rice processing mill by the Ebonyi government,’’ he said.
Mrs Chinwe Ekwe, a rice miller, called for proper investigation before making the conclusion that the millers use adulterated measuring equipment.
NAN reports that the millers used the occasion to ask questions about the new equipment while the IFAD-VCDP team demonstrated the efficiency of the equipment. (NAN)
RCO/ENN/AFA
Edited by Edwin Nwachukwu/Felix Ajide
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