There are doubts around the possibility of the federal government meeting its much-touted 2018 rice sufficiency target as experts question the implementation strategies.
The experts particularly want the government to define the right kind of subsidy intervention in the rice sub sector and also call for setting up more mills and as well reposition institutions like National Cereals Research Institute Badeggi-Niger state to enable it make meaningful impact through needed research.
Rice is a staple food consumed by most Nigerian households but reportedly gulps huge foreign exchange, put at $5 million daily. Figures as at May 2017 indicate that consumption rate was 7.9 million tonnes while production has increased to 5.8 tonnes per annum.
The federal government has rolled out several initiatives, including the successful anchor borrower programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria to reduce such spending especially in the face of decreased foreign exchange earnings to support import.
“The federal government has not made a presentation on proper strategies on how to achieve this target. I mean workable strategies, so that per time, you brief people on the updates of recorded progress, and even skills inventory. Rice sufficiency has been a rhetoric overtime since previous administration, and we are hearing that rhetoric again,” Ike Ubaka, the President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria told BusinessDay.
“The government has no implementation details and execution strategies on this rice sufficiency targets, if they have one let them say it,” Ubaka said.
Though he acknowledged the success so far recorded through the anchor borrower programme, he said it is an interventionist programme, and described it as an ad-hoc approach to rice farming.
Ubaka said, “The government must define the kind of subsidy it wants to adopt in rice, and channel it properly. Whether it is on inputs, fertiliser, skills of the farmer, cost of labour, marketing of trading of rice products, and intervening properly through price variation in movements of rice within state and national boundaries.”
Other stakeholders suggested to the federal government to take an inventory of abandoned mills in the country, and other rice projects.
Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, last month raised optimism that Nigeria was “inching closer to self-sufficiency in rice” and would produce up to seven million metric tonnes of rice in 2018.
Mohammed admitted the high price of locally produced rice, despite increased production, a situation he partly blamed on lower milling capacity to even meet production.
Quoting the Thailand Rice Exporters’ Association, he said Nigeria’s rice importation dropped from 644,131 metric tonnes to just about 21,000 metric tonnes within just two years – from September 2015 to September 2017.
But Rotimi Fashola an Agri-business expert, and a rice farmer observed that most of the imported rice are highly subsidised, meaning that they would always compete better than Nigeria’s rice in terms of price.
He said: “Thailand rice for instance has Rice Bank that supports it and the rice does better in terms of yield. Also, landing cost for a 50kg bag of rice in Benin Republic is N6000 naira, this also has a way of stimulating smuggling due to price variations.”
According to him, “Currently, Nigeria is not doing up to 8 million metric tonnes, and with burgeoning increase in population, the government needs to intensify efforts on rice production. Until we produce 15 million metric tonnes Paddy of rice, we cannot be self-sufficient in rice. Government must also intensify efforts in all year round farming, while also subsidizing. Cost of rice production is lower in Thailand, when compared with Nigeria, because input cost, labour cost, and credit access to farmers are highly subsidized,” he added.
Fashola suggested cheap loans for rice millers in the country to increase production, adding that a Single digit interest rate and moratorium of 2 years for a 7 year loan on an integrated rice mill could speed up the federal government’s effort in driving sufficiency in rice production.
Currently Nigeria has less than 30 integrated rice mills, being used by big milling firms. There are also several hundreds of other smaller mills across various cities in the country.
Experts also want the federal government to intensify efforts on all year round farming to ensure it inches closer to the self-sufficiency targets.
Meanwhile Federal government officials insist the 2018 target is achievable.
“We just gave out 200 milling machines, although some are quite small, and could do 10 tonnes a day, 20 tonnes a day,50 tonnes a day, but more milling machines need to come,” Audu Ogbeh the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development told BusinessDay.
“In another 5 years, we would need 10 million tonnes of rice per annum. One million metric tonnes of rice will fill up 33,000 trailer truck loads. This will give insight into the amount of rice we eat and which is not sustainable if we keep importing, hence we must grow the rice we eat,” Ogbeh added.
HARRISON EDEH, ABUJA
