Imo State is located in the tropical rainforest zone of West Africa. The climate is tropical, humid and the vegetation is equatorial rainforest with average maximum temperature of 34oc and average minimum temperature of 25oc. The two major seasons experienced in the State is the dry season (November - March) and wet season (April - October) with an annual rainfall of about 1500mm.
Rice is the most important cereal crop in Nigeria. It is consumed in all communities both rural and urban and it takes substantial parts of our food import bill, as production level drastically falls below consumption level. The government in bid to encourage local production, placed a ban on imported rice (Imolahin 1991). Several administrations had continued to ban importation of rice and encourage local production to save money.
In Imo State, only 4000 ha of rice with a yield of 160,000 metrics tones was produced in 2006 (lays 2006). For a population of 2.6million (2006 census) people, this is far lower than the national average consumption rate. Consequently, appropriate technologies were developed for both small holders and commercial growers for both upland and lowland cultivation as a result from 2006 – 2008, the size of cultivated rice hectare increased by more than 30% and with the help of USAID markets, Imo Rice farmers had a yield of over 600,000 metrics tones of paddy with the attendant problems of non-existence of high capacity rice mills in the state.
The State Government in collaboration with The Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources as well as the Ministry of Rural and Urban Planning will allocate to interested investor suitable land for cultivation of rice.