Author: Balaraba Sule, Federal University of Technology, Minna/Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida University Lapai and MSU Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Policy Project Scholar (2019)
Since
the late 1990s, West African countries including Nigeria, have experienced one
of the highest rice- demand growth rates in the world. Rice imports, despite
dwindling foreign revenues, has played a significant role in meeting the high
demand for rice in the region. This has firmly placed rice on the policy agenda
of several governments in West Africa. In Nigeria, the focus for several years
has been on how to increase domestic
rice production and improve its competitiveness with imports. As a result,
several policies and strategies including direct investments along the rice
value chain have been introduced.
Urbanization, changes in employment patterns, income
levels, and rapid population growth have significantly contributed to widening
the gap between rice supply and demand in Nigeria. Using the
production-consumption ratio as an indicator of self-sufficiency, it has been
deduced that even though rice production in Nigeria is steadily increasing
there are concerns as to the country’s ability to match the exponential growth
in demand. Van Oort et. al. (2015),
observed that with the current trends in yield, consumption, and population
growth in Nigeria, rice physical area in 2025 would need to more than double to
achieve self-sufficiency. An alternative proffered, theoretically, is to
increase yields to 80% of their biophysical potential plus double cropping in
irrigated systems. It was also observed that there are large yield gaps between
potential and actual yields in Nigeria indicating that much still needs to be
done in increasing productivity.
A
comparative analysis of the rice development history and policy changes since
the 1980s across selected West African countries shows that neither
protectionism nor liberalization had a sustainable impact on West Africa's rice
import dependency. According to Mendez del Villar & Lançon (2015), trade
policies wrongly assume that rice markets are efficient and able to forward
price incentives to producers, whereas they are actually deeply segmented
between local and imported rice. It was observed that there is a stable
coexistence between local rice production and rice imports which is not
affected by changes in tariff policy or the international price increase. This
is ascribed mainly to the different quality attributes of local and imported
rice.
Several
studies have indicated that consumers' preferences between local and imported
rice is not driven solely by changes in relative prices, rather consumer’s
perception of food quality also play a vital role. Consumer households perceive
higher prices of imported rice brands as a reflection of better quality
attributes, and this reinforces their preference for imported rice brands. Price
differential between local and imported rice brands have been found to be lower
than consumers’ perceived quality differential. This could be one of the
reasons for the persistence of consumers’ apathy against preference for
imported rice brands. Main reasons consumers give for this preference is the
clean long grains and non-stickiness associated with imported rice. Hence, it
is easy to assume that no matter how competitive local rice production is or
how secure our borders are, until local rice can compete with imported rice in
terms of these valued qualities, Nigerians would always go for imported rice
irrespective of the price.
Until
recently, the Nigerian Government has mainly focused on the production stages
of rice through dissemination of improved seeds, fertilizer subsidies, and
improved water management (pumps and rehabilitation of irrigated schemes).
Policy makers have realized that it is no longer practical to assume that a
rice market linking local supply to demand will develop spontaneously. The
critical role played by the marketing and processing functions in establishing
an efficient local-rice value chain has now become the center point of policy
objectives as evidenced from the policy thrust of the Nigerian Government’s Agricultural
Transformation Agenda (ATA) and the current Agriculture Promotion Policy (APP).
This has become imperative in the face of growing demand and dependence on the
country on rice imports. Attention is now on the future of the small and
medium-scale private entrepreneurs that fulfill critical intermediary functions
(marketing and processing), in the formulation of rice policy and in the
objectives of rice development programs. This author notes that there is a need
for simultaneous implementations of import restriction policies and domestic
marketing policies that would promote a positive image of the improved quality
attributes of local rice while reversing the negative perception of consumers.
With
the increasing necessity to grow rice locally, it is important to look beyond
the availability of natural resources. Without putting a higher priority on the
development of an efficient local rice marketing system, rice development will
likely have a limited impact on import dependency level. The changes in
Nigeria’s policy thrust is a welcome development. Consequently, it is timely to
review the pros and cons of policy options in search of the most sustainable.
