22 Sep Stallion Group, Popular Farms pioneers Self Sufficiency in Rice in Nigeria
At the wake of the 60th year of Independence of Nigeria, the role of agriculture in Nigerian economy cannot be overemphasized. Stallion Group’s, Popular Farms & Mills Ltd has been in the fore front in driving self-sufficiency in rice, making it the country’s most viable route that can successfully meander the current economic dilemma in recent times.
National Bureau of Statistics- NBS, confirms that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) decreased by –6.10%(year-on-year) in real terms in the second quarter of 2020. GDP From Agriculture however increased to 3918668 NGN Million in the second quarter of 2020 from 3677153 NGN Million in the first quarter of 2020. The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, further tasked the banking sector to consider an increase in the percentage of loans to the agriculture sector from the current four per cent to 10 per cent by 2024 truly recognizing the potential of agriculture as a sector and its vast contribution to Nigerian economy.
Managing Director of Popular Farms & Mils Ltd, Mr. Amit Rai added that Stallion group introduced a pioneering concept of packaging essential food items into a multi brand package in a generic market in Nigeria where rice was predominantly just sold as “rice”. Rice Brands from Stallion today are identified as leading consumer brands in the country.
Popular Farms and Mills Limited is leading the Nigerian Rice revolution by locally producing farm fresh paddy that is sortexed and milled at ISO 9001:2015 / ISO 22000 certified state of the art fully automated rice mills. The group has significantly invested in local rice milling facilities to obtain self-sufficiency in domestic produce. It operates the biggest rice mill in Kano, Nigeria and has an annual installed capacity of 430000 MT.
Recently KPMG valued two of the top Stallion Group rice brands Royal Stallion at N66.1 Bn and Caprice at N 41.5 08 Bn a consolidated valuation of N 107.6 Bn establishing leadership in the formal retail market. Some of the other popular brands from the company are Tomato King, Double Bull, People’s Princess and Super Champion.
Popular Farms has been pushing forward the agenda of opportunity, sufficiency & security in Nigeria by entering into a partnership with over 1,000 cooperative groups, having direct access to more than 40,000 member-farmers for increasing the rice and sesame production and developing agro business in Northern Nigeria. The group imparts several training programmes and distributes free rice farming tools to out growers across the rice producing states in Nigeria.
The philanthropic arm of the group, Stallion Empowerment Initiative is working in close coordination with all stakeholders and the government to tackle the pandemic that has caused a social and economic mayhem in the country impacting frontline workers and lots of daily wage earners who are most impacted by the lockdown. The company pledged free rice for three months to hospitals dedicated to COVID – 19 care in Nigeria. 25 State hospitals across 15 states in Nigeria are beneficiaries of the relief execution programme. The organization is also proud to be involved in Rice supply to the Presidential Scheme and to Red Cross for the displaced people.
The group is confident that the Nigerian economy will bounce back strongly with the collective efforts of the agric industry and the right policy responses to the multidimensional crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.