STALLION Group aims at ensuring food sufficiency in the country as it has set for itself a target of producing 15 million tonnes of rice per annum, through the setting up of more milling capacities and structured farming activities.
This was as a company under license of the group, the Popular Farms and Mills Limited, bagged the prestigious special agriculture sector award, IBCA-Outstanding Projects and Business Leader of the Year Award.
As contained in a statement issued on Sunday, the group also commended President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, over what it described as their leading roles “in the agriculture sector and their pathfinder initiative of the change agenda”.
Popular Farms and Mills Limited, in the statement, said, “Stallion has established fully integrated agricultural operations including world-class rice mills at strategic locations, with the aim of promoting milling and paddy cultivation in the captive areas, thus creating a catalyst for increased local production of paddy and, ultimately, Nigeria’s self-sufficiency in rice production.”
It thanked IBCA “for creating this platform to acknowledge the real positive change makers in the agriculture sector and OPAL nomination committee for nominating and rewarding Stallion Group for the Business Leader of the Year and Outstanding Project awards.
“These awards are testimonials to our efforts at expanding operations in Nigeria’s fully integrated rice value chain, resulting in a boost of 430,000 metric tonnes of rice production per annum.
“The Group is targeting production of 1.5 million tonnes of rice in Nigeria through the setting up of more milling capacities and structured farming activities.
“Stallion has established fully integrated agricultural operations including world-class rice mills at strategic locations, with the aim of promoting milling and paddy cultivation in the captive areas, thus creating a catalyst for increased local production of paddy and, ultimately, Nigeria’s self-sufficiency in rice production”.
Commenting on the awards, The Group’s Director, Mr Harpreet Singh, said “sensing the need for local self-sufficiency and government’s ambitions for food security, Stallion pioneered investments into backward integration, creating a fully integrated value chain. We are working tirelessly to improve farm yields and bring in sustainable and scalable growth to farmers”.
To energise its backward integration value-chain chain, Stallion Group embarked on an initiative to include local manufacturing facilities for packaging and countrywide distribution infrastructure designed to meet the demands of the Nigerian people across the various states.
Consequently, the company also established several collection centres spread across rice producing states of Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Niger, Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi.
The statement noted that the countrywide distribution centre initiative was aimed at, not only assisting farmers in understanding modern rice farming techniques, but also focused on distributing farm inputs and forming associations with various farmers cooperatives to lead the Nigerian rice revolution.
“It is on the imperative of this initiative that Stallion Group came up with extension services such as the ‘Village School’ (a farmer’s training model) and ‘On Farm Trials’ (practical demonstrations) that are being executed to import technical know-how to promote advanced rice farming”, it added.
It thanked IBCA for acknowledging positive change makers in the agriculture sector, adding that the Stallion Group “would like to acknowledge the quintessential and impeccable leadership qualities and magnanimous approach of President Buhari and the Minister of Agriculture in the agriculture sector and their pathfinder initiative of the change agenda”.
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