Notore Chemical Industries Limited and the Cross River State Government yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to build Africa's largest rice mill.

The Guardian reports that the mill will have a capacity of 255,000 tonnes and that the project will also include a 20,000 hectare rice farm in the state.

A state wide outgrowers buy-back scheme is expected to cater for extra rice that the mill would require.

Jite Okoloko, group managing director and chief executive officer of Notore said that the company is allocating huge resources for world-class rice production in Nigeria.

He added that Notore Foods, a subsidiary of Notore Group, is committed to see Nigeria self-sufficient in food production.

According to Okoloko, Nigeria consumes around five million tonnes of rice per year with demand expected to grow to over eight million tonnes in the next ten years. Nigeria currently only produces three million tonnes of rice per annum, often of a low quality.