Nice Rice Millers located in Mwea, Kirinyaga county is the biggest private milling institution in the world and the largest rice milling institution in East Africa. PISHORI RICE PRODUCTION PROCESS. They specialize in the production of pure pishori rice. The production facility was established in the year 2012 and sits on a three-acre piece of land.
Nice Millers has the biggest mills in Africa with a capacity of 70 metric tonnes a day. It mills about 70% of the over 40,000 tonnes of rice produced in Mwea Rice Irrigation Scheme every year. The Scheme produces 80% of the rice consumed in Kenya. The mill also has a warehouse with a monthly storage space of 30,000 metric tonnes of rice. We provide storage facilities and market space for free and also sell farmers’ rice on commission. The factory currently works with over 5,000 farmers and 300 women traders who mill and retail rice in the premises. The business has created employment for 1,000 youth who operate and ferry paddy rice by motorbikes and donkey carts. We currently employ over 80 permanent staff and 250 casual laborers.
Nice Rice Millers Ltd has helped farmers add value to their crop before delivering it to the market. Income to farmers has doubled since they are able to thresh their paddy rice after harvesting which ensures they deliver a finished product to the market.
PISHORI RICE PRODUCTION PROCESS
Purchase of paddy rice from farmers
The rice is purchased at very competitive prices from farmers.
High Quality Reception
The paddy rice is received from the farmers and stored at a temperature of 13 degrees. It is then inspected for quality and shape.
Milling
The paddy rice is then milled by top notch professionals in the pishori rice business.It is then packed into sacks or small scale rice packages of 2, 5 or 10 KGs.
Marketing and Sales
We offer optional marketing services of the processed pishori rice on behalf of the farmers. We also are involved in retail and wholesale sale of processed rice to consumers.
NICE RICEMILLERS DIRECTOR
Mr. Charles Njiru Kaburu is the founder and Managing Director of Nice Rice Millers Ltd. He is a serial entrepreneur who has tried his hand at many businesses over the last 20 years – from tailoring, public service and construction material transport businesses, agro-chemicals to growing tomatoes and French beans and operating a brewery. In all this he found success in running Nice Rice Millers Ltd.
Mr. Njiru has a passion for working with smallholder farmers and supporting them to engage in agriculture as a business. His efforts and contribution have been recognized at the highest level in the country. This has seen him receive meritorious awards from two Kenyan Presidents – Head of State Commendation (HSC) by the current President Uhuru Kenyatta in recognition of his investments towards achieving Kenya’s Vision 2030 goals and Order of the Golden Warrior (OGW) from President Mwai Kibaki for his contribution in uplifting the living standards of rice farmers in the expansive Mwea Irrigation Scheme.
Apart from Nice Rice Millers, Mr. Njiru also runs other subsidiary companies in the same location that include a four star hotel, a supermarket and a petrol station with a service bay. In addition to Nice Rice Mills, other ventures that make up his business empire include Nice Charcoal, Nice Mineral Water, Nice Bakeries and Nice Jikos.
NICE RICEMILLERS CONTACTS
CALL +254 792 520 587
Send us an email
How to yield big from rice farming
Rice is considered Kenya’s third staple food after maize and wheat.
It is actually the seed of a grass species that is an annual plant
To add value to rice it is milled into rice flour.
Raw rice is dried before milling or grounding to make flour which can be used to make pancakes, noodles, thicken soups and stews and as an alternative to wheat flour in cakes and biscuits.
Planting
It takes rice plants four to five months to grow to maturity.
Popular varieties include Basmati, Pishori and aromatic.
There are plenty of rice varieties and they are grown differently as stated by farmlinkkenya.com include
Irrigated varieties: Sindano, Basmati 370, Basmat 217, BW 196, BG-90-2, BR 51-74-6 and IR 2793-80-1, ITA 310
Low land rain fed: Ci Cong Ai, WABIS-675, Jasmine-85, TGR-78
Rain-fed upland: NARIKA 1, NARIKA 4, NARIKA 10, NARIKA 11, TRG-94, Nam Roo, Deurado precoce, WAB 181-18
Majority of the rice in Kenya is grown under irrigation in paddy schemes.
Ecological conditions required for rice growing consist of annual rainfall of 800 to 2,000mm, the temperature of 20 to 36 degrees Celsius.
Rice thrives best in sandy loam to clay soils with a soil PH of 4.5 to 7.0
The land is ploughed about two weeks before sowing and flooding and a raised bed prepared.
Land preparation is carried out by flooding the fields to a depth of 10 cm, 15 days before direct sowing and transplanting seedlings.
Planting should be before the onset of long rains for rainfed rice.
Farm practices carried out to maintain rice on the fields include weeding manually by hand or by using herbicides and crop rotation with legumes such as soybeans and green grams to boost soil fertility.
Pests and diseases
Common diseases known to attack rice as noted by informationcradle.com include blast, rice yellow mottle virus, damping off, bacterial leaf blight, sheath blight, sheath rot and brown leaf spot.
Rice pests include stem borers, leaf miners, root cutting insects, white rice borer, birds, stalk-eyed fly, rice sucking bugs, rice root knot nematode and rice leafhopper.
The pests and diseases are controlled by use of appropriate insecticides, cultural methods, planting healthy seeds, crop rotation, observing field hygiene and through biological control.
Harvesting
Rice is harvested between four to six months after planting. It is cut, swathed, threshed, winnowed, dried and stored.
Drying is done to around 12 percent to 14 percent moisture content before storage.
Source: The Standard
