The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is providing up to $35 million fund to Tanveer Food Limited (TFL), a concern of Meghna Group of Industries (MGI), to help establish a state-of-the-art automated rice mill in the Bogura region.

The mill will have a processing capacity of 1,000 tonnes per day producing over 170,000 tonnes of quality packaged rice by 2027, IFC said in a statement.

It will also enable the construction of an 80 tonnes a day rice bran oil plant and a husk-based co-generation plant – for heating and electricity – contributing to climate mitigation and resilience to volatile energy costs during production.

The funding will also help in ensuring food security and improving the incomes of more than 123,000 smallholder farmers, especially women in the country, the IFC said in a press release today.

This is IFC's first investment under its Global Food Security Platform (GFSP), a $6 billion global financing facility set up to counter the global food crisis by restoring and improving production to build the foundation for a more resilient global food system, it said.

The investment includes $21 million from IFC's own account as well as a subordinated loan of up to $14 million from the Private Sector Window of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).

MGI Director Tahmina Binthe Mostafa said: "This investment will allow us to expand the processing and distribution of rice products in northern Bangladesh, a region that has traditionally been comprised of large number of smallholder farmers growing rice to earn their livelihoods."

"Driven by the growing demand for packaged rice with increased income and evolving consumer choices, we will contribute to the modernisation of Bangladesh's rice milling sector by shifting from traditional husking mills to automated mills, which are key to improving the rice quality and increasing the shelf life of packaged rice," she said.

Riccardo Puliti, IFC's regional vice president for Asia and the Pacific, said, "In a country like Bangladesh, food security means rice security."

"Through building a state-of-the-art rice milling factory this project will deliver hundreds of jobs and put more money into the pockets of thousands of the country's smallholder farmers."

More importantly, this rice project in Bangladesh, along with others in the pipeline, will enable the global food supply market to better withstand price and supply shocks, building a more resilient future for the benefit of consumers and farmers, Puliti said.