Rice Importation: How Prohibition Can be Sustained
Knowing that we have the rice output in Nigeria to satisfy all our local needs, Crusoe Osagie writes on why rice importation still thrives and how to effectively sustaining the ban.
With available statistics proving that enough rice is produced in Nigeria to satisfy the local need for the commodity it is important to discuss the reason why the importation of rice to the country is still a thriwing and profitable business.
THISDAY research to find out the reason why so much rice still had to come into the country despite the availability of enough locally produced rice to feed the populace revealed that the market of imported rice abounds mostly in the very urban and elite environments.
After the ban which was placed on rice importation in 1985 was lifted,polished and vitamine A Coated golden rice gained access into the country. With the qualify of the imported rice being so oustanding and the price very competitive it became an impossibility of locally produced rice to hold its share in the market at Urban cities and town.
Considering the fact that the trend of the nations purchasing power is determined by activities in the urban centres and also the intensity of the socio economic problem of rural Urban drit, which has been a parmanent feature in Nigeria, there is little wonder why we had to spend about $750 million annually on rice importation.
Because the importation option, was available it did not make economic and business sense for profit driven Nigerian business men and even foreign investors to direct their funds towards the processing and polishing of rice which is produced in large qualities in rural areas.
Most investors in this sector simply directed their investment towards buying processed rice from Thailand and other Asian countries as well as the United State at very cheap prices due to technological edge and selling in urban centres in the country.
With the elites and urban dwellers being the target buyers of imported rice the share of the resource poor rural dwellers was not needed by traders in imported rice to stay afloat.
The locally manufactured rice was naturally banished to the rural areas where most of them consumed what the produced, a few going to livestock feed some sold at low prices and the remaining costituting a large percentage of post harvest losses.
Rice production is one of the many areas where Nigeria posseses a very undenyable comparative advantage and yet costitutes major sources of foreign exchange waste.
With all our potentials in rice production only a limited portion of the locally grown rice crop is available for key urban market centers such as Lagos, because small-scale rice farmers produce subsistence levels of rice with remaining surplus portions consumed at the village level. Locally milled rice is also of poor quality and quantity falls far short of urban demand. Many urban consumers are also weary of picking stones from the rice and washing local rice several times, while imported parboiled rice is clean and free from foreign matter.
Rice imports account for approximately one-third of Nigeria's rice supplies. In January 2001, the Nigerian government raised the rice import duty from 50 percent to 75 percent in order to "protect local producers against massive imports" and the duty has since been increased to 100 percent.
Despite the increase in import duty, the Nigerian rice imports estimate from 1.25 million tons for 2000/01 to 1.8 million for 2001/02. The bulk of rice imports comes from Southeast Asia, with about 80 percent coming from Thailand, and smaller amounts from India and Vietnam.
Although American rice has not made major sales inroads into the Nigerian market to date, it does have a market potential based upon its high quality.
About 2.1 million tons of rice is consumed annually on the average, while the total average local rice production output in Nigeria is about 3.6 million tons per annum.
Simple arithmethic therefore, shows that if all our rice output are adequately harnessed, we will not need any external supply and we may even have a marketable surplus.
With these statistics available to the federal government, one wonders why we have to wait till 2006, before the ban on the importation of rice, which puts so much unecessary pressure on the demand for foreign currency to the peril of our economy is imposed.
Statistics on Nigeria rice production from credible international organisations such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO, West Africa Rice Development Association WARDA and USDA, indeed has shown the potentials of Nigeria not only to be self sufficient, but to also generate a marketable surplus of rice that can be exported.
Nigeria is West Africa's largest producer of rice, producing an average of 3.2 million tons of paddy rice for the past 5-years .Rice cultivation is widespread within the country (rice production map), extending from the northern to southern zones with most rice grown in the eastern and middle belt of the country .
Domestic production is constrained by poor-input and crop management techniques by small scale rice farmers, as well as lack of water control techniques.
As stated earlier, Nigeria has the capacity to be self-sufficient in rice production as virtually all ecologies in the country are suitable for rice cultivation.
Rice in Nigeria is typically planted from April-May and harvested from August-November .
Rainfed upland rice accounts for approximately 25 percent of the harvested area; rainfed lowland systems account for 50 percent; irrigated systems account for 16 percent; and deepwater/mangrove swamps account for less than 10 percent of the total rice area. Rainfed lowland systems include the broad valley bottoms, or fadama (lowlands) in the north; and the flood plains along the Niger and Benue River systems. Irrigated systems include a few large-scale irrigation schemes in the north and small-scale systems located on the inland valley bottoms in the south.
To ensure that prohibition of rice importation can be sustained in Nigeria therefore, processing of rice to world class standard is a non negotiable task.
Rice processing and polishing does not have a complicated procedure and as such investment in this area does not involve so much complexities.
Unlike some other sectors where Nigeria has a comparative advantage like oil and gas, construction, Aluminum simelting and others, rice processing is relatively simple and the equipments involved are non-ambigous.
Therefore, to stir investment in this area what the government should do is to enforce the ban on rice importation promptly and encourage investors to go into importation of rice-processing equipment so as improve the high quality rice produced in Nigeria into a finished state that will be appealing to elities in urban areas already used to imported polished rice.
|
