Value Addition Assessment of Rice Production in Anambra East Agricultural Zone of Anambra State

This study assessed the extent to which values are added to rice and how profitable rice becomes when value is added to it through processing in Anambra-East Agricultural zone of Anambra State Nigeria. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to sample 90 respondents. Results showed that majority of the farmers were males, aged 41-50 years engaged fully in value addition in rice production and processing. This indicated that the younger youths were rarely found in the business, majority of the farmers stopped at primary level of Education and their mean years of experience was 20. The gross margin for paddy production was N175, 000, while the gross margin for milled rice is N290, 000 and the benefit cost ratio for paddy production is 2.4 while that of milled rice is 2.2. The most serious problems confronting rice farmers in the zone were disease and pest infestation, lack of access to land, inadequate irrigation, inadequate extension agents, poor access to institutional credits.Bad rural road network, the inadequacy of modern storage and processing facilities and poor/low level of education. It is therefore recommended that farmers should be encouraged to participate actively in farmers/social organizations and cooperative societies in order to strengthen their group action. Efforts should be made to provide adequate input to the farmers to eschew competitiveness among inputs used. Government should therefore put effort towards establishing microfinance and agricultural banks in some of the rice producing areas. This institutions should have low interest rate and low collateral.