11/12/2018
So it was a giant stride as the Nigerian Association of Technologists in Engineering (NATE) was officially presented with the Patent certificate for the invention of an industrial scale Rice De-stoning machine by the Honorable Minister for Science and technology Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu .
Engineering Technologists from the Lagos state branch of the association had in 2016 designed and fabricated a machine that can remove the smallest stone from our locally made rice. This machine can handle at least 500kg(10 bags) of rice per hour. Since the machine was lunched, a lot of rice farmers in nigeria have been desirous to own it but the law requires that any innovation be patented first before mass production. This is to avoid intellectual property theft hence the journey that culminated to the event of 10/12/2018. I am very proud to be among the innovators and finally we have a solution to encourage people to consume locally produced rice from Benue, Kebbi, Aba,Ofada etc. Proudly Nigerian!