To complement the world climate change drive in reducing the carbon emission where countries including Nigeria are galvanizing for strategic involvement of relevant stakeholders, Silvex International, a Nigerian based Agribusiness firm in partnership with Developmental Association for Renewable Energy (DARE) and the British Government under its LINKS Project funded the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCDO) have introduced climate sensitive parboiling and drying of rice paddy in Kano.
The company has trained over two hundred (200) rural women on climate sensitive methodologies for parboiling and drying of rice paddy in Sabuwar Kuka village of Makoda Local Government in Kano state. The main objective of the training was to develop their skills of the rural women handling climate smart equipment drying and parboiling equipment. The adoption of the new innovation can contribute to environmental sustainability and increasing the income of the women beneficiaries.
Speaking at the field training exercise, the Managing Director of the Company Abubakar Usman Karfi said, as rice generates huge carbon emission at production and post production levels, Silvex partners a number of organizations around the world on the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) initiative with a view to reducing the negative impact of rice production and its contribution to climate change in northern Nigeria.
Karfi confirmed that the climate smart parboiling and drying equipment reduces carbon emission by up to 80% and can improve the livelihood of the rural women parboilers also known as (‘Yan Gumi) in local language.
“The drying equipment will take only six hours, which makes it possible to dry parboiled rice three times per day making the exercise easier and cheaper”.
The training provided hands-on skills for adoption of new techniques for the rice parboiling and drying which is completely different from the old way of doing things.
By comparison, the climate smart parboiling reduces parboiling time by up to 60% over the traditional pottery approach. It also reduces energy share cost by over 70% while the drying is proved to be more efficient with a speed of completing three circles per day unlike the traditional sun drying that takes minimum of a full day.
The initiative enjoys technical support from the FCDO LINKS project and other partners engaged by Silvex such as the Developmental Association for Renewable Energy (DARE), RegenFarm UK Ltd and Kingston Organic to harness the potentials of carbon trading and promote environmental sustainability.
