Nigeria: Rice Mill Gives Dabarkda Women More Time, Income and Independence

Aisha Suleiman, a member of the cooperative, remembers how demanding every trip to the mill used to be, especially when transport costs were added to already expensive processing fees.

For women in Dabarkda, a rural community in Dass Local Government Area of Bauchi State, rice farming once came with a hidden cost measured in hours on the road, physical strain, and money lost before their harvest even reached the market. Farmers had to walk to the main road and continue by motorcycle to Dass town whenever they needed to process their rice, paying transport and milling charges while losing much of a day that could have gone into caring for children, managing their homes or building another source of income.

Life has become easier since UN Women installed a three-in-one rice milling machine for members of the Kunsuman Dabarkda Bundot Group A Cooperative and the Bamganfabam Dabarkda Bundot Group B Cooperative. The equipment mills, removes stones and polishes rice in a single process, bringing an essential service close to home and giving rural women greater control over their work, time and earnings.

Processing Rice Without Losing an Entire Day

Aisha Suleiman, a member of the cooperative, remembers how demanding every trip to the mill used to be, especially when transport costs were added to already expensive processing fees. The new machine is now close enough for her to fit rice processing into her daily routine without leaving the community or putting other responsibilities aside.

"I can even place my food on the fire and quickly take some grains for processing," Aisha says. "We no longer spend hours travelling outside the community to process our rice. The time we save is now used for caring for our children, household chores and running our businesses." Her experience shows how access to the right equipment can ease unpaid care pressures while creating space for women to earn, save and take part more fully in community life.

Cleaner Rice Brings Stronger Earnings

The machine has improved how much saleable rice the women recover from each batch. Ten mudus of paddy processed with conventional equipment previously produced barely four mudus of rice, often poorly polished and mixed with stones. The same quantity now yields more than five mudus of clean, polished and market-ready rice, reducing waste and giving buyers a better product.

That quality difference has raised the selling price from about ₦1,000 per mudu for conventionally processed rice to roughly ₦1,500 per mudu for the cooperative's premium rice. Lower processing expenses allow members to keep more of what they earn, helping families pay for schoolbooks, uniforms, clothing and household needs as women strengthen their savings groups and build greater financial independence.

One Machine Creates a Community Hub

The milling centre has grown into a meeting place where women gather each week, manage the equipment together and make decisions about their cooperatives. Shared responsibility has deepened trust and solidarity, turning a practical machine into a symbol of what women can achieve when useful resources are placed within their reach.

Customers now travel from Doka, Pegi, Mbula, Gunduli and even Bauchi town to use the centre because its destoning and polishing services are rarely available elsewhere in Dass Local Government Area. Umar Ibrahim Bunu, Sarkin Dabarkda Bundot, says the machine has united women and benefited the wider community, expressing appreciation to UN Women for recognising the needs and potential of rural women.

The cooperatives are thinking about their next step, such as purchasing a dry grinding machine and expanding the site into a busier centre of local enterprise. Their progress carries a simple message for other rural communities: when women receive tools that reduce hard labour, improve product quality and open better markets, the benefits reach children, households and the local economy.