Nigeria Content Online

Tucked away from
the volumes of news generated by the Nigerian media was a plaintive cry
for help by the president of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria
(RIFAN), Abubakar Wodi. There is nothing unusual in demands by interest
groups, especially farmers, for government support for their industry.

But Mr. Wodi has
an unusual request. He wanted government to assist members of his
association to build on their success in way that could only be
beneficial to the country itself.

The rice farmer is calling for a freeze in rice importation to save local production.

He said the need
for such a measure is necessary because of a glut in paddy rice due to
importation. Mr. Wodi said that more than 75 percent of the rice
produced locally remains unsold, adding that the latest report from Edo
State indicated that the price of the commodity had fallen drastically.

The leader of the
rice farming community further argued that, for a country, which
consumes rice more than any other staple food, concerted efforts must
be made to address the problem urgently. He urged the federal
government to review the N23 million worth of contracts for small-scale
rice processing centres, awarded in 2009, to give way to large-scale
rice processing centres.

We can but urge
government, at all levels, to hearken to the cry of the association for
the lives of thousands of people involved in the cultivation,
processing and marketing of this cereal depend on sustaining the
industry. Nigeria also stands to gain economically by keeping these
people in employment – and that is without talking about the millions
of dollars the country expends every year to import the product.

Rice, until the
oil boom of the 1970s, was not a major source of food for Nigerians. In
fact, statistics show that Nigeria had the lowest per capita annual
consumption of rice in West Africa in the 1960s. But since then, the
consumption of this cereal has literally gone through the roof,
recording an estimated growth of 10 per cent a year – and demand for
the grain is predicted to surge by almost 50% to 2013. Yet, the need,
fostered as it were by changing feeding patterns, is largely met by
foreign imports. The commodity, which is procured mostly from Asian
markets, costs the country close to $1 billion a year.

It has also
changed from being middle class fare to that eagerly consumed by all
classes. A World Bank report, which classified rice as a strategic
commodity in the country, noted poor urban households obtain over 30
percent of their caloric intake from rice. The product also constitutes
a major component of their food expenditure.

Rice has thus
become a security issue, which the government has to pay serious
attention to. Rice is grown in virtually all the states in Nigeria and
there is nothing that stops the country from becoming major net
exporter of the grain except lack of investment.

It is possible
that the perceived low quality of locally produced rice was responsible
for the low patronage of the stock. But half the job has been done with
increased cultivation and higher yielding varieties.

Surely, as Mr.
Wodi said, better and bigger processors should improve the quality of
the local product. If government recognises rice as a strategic
commodity, then it ought not to be too difficult for it to make this
happen. As countries such as India have shown, nothing exalts a nation
more than an ability to feed itself. It should also free up some more
of our foreign reserve for other products that would have bigger impact
on national development.