Stakeholders call for rice council to draft policies
Stakeholders at a roundtable in Abuja have called for a rice federation or a rice council that will regulate and draft policies on rice business activities in Nigeria, with the involvement of all stakeholders.
In a statement by Olukayode Oyeleye, special assistant on media to the minister of agriculture and rural development, the rice millers at this forum held weekend outlined ways to make the business more competitive. Mohammed Abubakar, the chairman of UMZA Rice and chairman of the integrated rice millers group underscored the millers’ position. He said, “Our objective is to see Nigeria of today self sufficient in rice and to even export outside the country.”
According to him, the problems facing rice business include production of paddy, availability, price, transportation, storage, seed companies’ dubious activities, marketing as well as weights and measures. He therefore called for more involvement of research and development partners in boosting rice production.
“The father of all problems,” Abubakar said, is smuggling. “Smuggling, today, is our challenge. It affects the small millers, integrated millers, the whole value chain and the national economy,” he stated. Abubakar added that, of the 20 rice-laden ships expected in Cotonou port this November, 13 of the ships, carrying 350,000 tonnes of rice are ready to berth. He pointed out that this is aside from the 20,000 tonnes ship loads of rice that berthed in October implying that most of the rice is headed for Nigeria. “This is really killing us,” he lamented, asking how many tonnes of rice are actually consumed in Benin Republic.
Akinwunmi Adesina, the honourable minister of agriculture and rural development, in his response, expressed the urgent need to have a strong rural economic development, and stressed that rice could be used to drive rural economic activities. On importation and smuggling, he said that “rice from Thailand is actually being dumped on Nigeria. You are not dealing with a situation of fair competition, but one of dumping.”
Adesina announced a number of measures, mutually agreed to by the millers, that would sustainably grow and develop the rice industry in Nigeria on a sustainable basis, beginning with short term measures over a four-year period. He commended the report of USAID MARKETS, the United States Agency for International Development marketing research in Nigeria, which noted that there is no physical shortage of rice paddy, but rather the problems of accessibility and price. He proposed the setting up of paddy aggregation and bulking centres to bridge the missing links between farmers and millers in the value chain.
Other measures agreed to for implementation include loan guarantees for the bulking and aggregation activities, market support to bridge the price at aggregation centres, computerisation of aggregation activities, adjustment of tariffs and levies to give local producers, processors and marketers more competitive advantage over importers, support for research and development.
Additional measures announced include upgrading, rehabilitating and expanding of irrigation and water management infrastructure for farmers, provision of low interest financing for establishing new integrated mills.increased use of higher yielding varieties of rice seeds that would ensure greater rice yields per hectare, transport subsidies to lower the ultimate price of rice in the market and upgrade of physical infrastructure around the integrated mills.
Abubakar, on behalf of the integrated rice millers group, expressed gratitude to the minister for the untiring efforts to free Nigeria from the shackles of import dependency in rice supply. According to him, “the rice processors of Nigeria are 100 per cent behind the minister’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda.”
By:OLUYINKA ALAWODE