Diva World Trading Services (WTS), has established a 30 ton digital rice mill, to support the Federal Government’s drive to make Nigeria sufficient in rice production and also boost employment opportunities
Based in Mgbidi, Imo State, the digital mill is first of its kind in the state, consequently it has provided available market for small holder rice farmers and particularly rural women farmers, who toil to process their paddies manually with little or no profit at all.
Ifeyinwa Nnanna Mba, chief executive officer (CEO), Diva WTS said that the mill currently gets about 200 tons of paddies monthly and a mill capacity of 30 tons daily with plans to increase its production capacity in the middle of 2022, from 50-100 tons per day.
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“Our mill is a 30 ton milling machine gives us a minimum of 100 bags of 50kg rice a day. That is if we work for 8 hours. However, if we work for 12 hours, we would produce full trailer load of rice daily. So that’s the type of machine we have,” she said.
She also revealed that the firm has started sourcing paddies from local farmers across the South East and Northern part of the country in readiness for commencement of operations, which is expected to kick-start before the end of 3rd quarter of 2021.
Mba, who started rice business in 2019 following the ban on importation of rice by the federal government, decided to set up a modern rice mill in Imo State to boost rice production in the South-east region of the country.
She said that the location of the mill is strategic as it is important to locate the mill close to source of raw materials, which in this case is rice paddies, adding that the rice Mill has the capacity to produce quality rice for other registered brands.
“We have completed the first stage of the project, which consists of the mill and administrative building, we have also started sourcing for paddy rice mostly from Abakiliki in Ebonyi State and the Northern part of Nigeria, hence products from the mill should hit the local market by September 2021,” she said.
