Rice is a staple food for most urban and rural households Nigeria, and is therefore a very important food security crop for the country. It is, however, primarily a cash crop as most rice farmers produce and sell nearly 80 percent of total their production for cash. The commodity therefore generates more income for Nigerian farmers than any other cereal crop in the country. 

Rice milling is an important economic activity in Nigeria and entails the process of converting paddy into edible rice. There are a number of large scale rice mills operating in the country but about 75-80% of locally milled rice is produced by micro-, small and medium scale rice mills located mostly within rice producing clusters. These mills provide millions of direct and indirect jobs within the formal and informal sector of the economy. Most of the rice therefore consumed by the lower and middle class in the country is produced by micro-, small and medium scale rice millers and hence the need for such category of rice millers to get organized in order to be competitive in the national rice market environment.