THE year 2020 has not been an easy year for farmers across Nigeria. In the beginning of the year, farmers across Nigeria went to their farms and planted their crops hoping to start harvesting in few months time, but their hopes were dashed by events.
On March 30th this year, the Nigerian government lockdown the country in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. This lockdown was a major blow to rice farmers especially as they had already planted but couldn’t access their farms.
Though the RIFAN Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) said the lockdown won’t affect rice production and distribution, but the effects were felt in all parts of the country.
“Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria Assured Nigerians that the lockdown due to COVID-19 will not in any affect rice production and supply in the country
“We have enough Rice Paddy produced by our farmers, we launched three of our Rice Pyramids in Taraba, Kano and Kebbi states housing close to two hundred thousand bags of rice Paddy, more are still on ground enough to feed our Rice Milling industries”
“We therefore appeal to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to buy the excess Rice Paddy from us as part of government food strategy reserves policy”, the RIFAN President, AminuGoronyo said this during the lockdown.
After the lockdown, when farmers finally returned back to their farms, there was a major flood which washed away thousands of hectares of rice farms across the country.
Again, Goronyo said despite the flood that ravaged farm lands, rice production would not be affected.
In the cause of this article, we are going to access the impact of flood and lockdown on rice production, and also look at other challenges affecting rice production in Nigeria.
The RIFAN Vice President, South West, Mr Victor Korede said the region experienced drought instead of flood, which also affected rice production in that region.
He said the region is not doing badly in rice production, especially Oyo State which has great potential in rice production but much unknown.
“Rather than being affected by the flood, South West was affected by drought, in the South West, we have been expecting rain, but it came in September so a lot of our farmers recorded losses.
“Rice production in the South West has been very much progressive, in south West about 2 states were notably known for rice production, one of them is Ogun State and Ekiti State, but we have other states that are currently producing rice but unknown like Ondo, Osun and Oyo is coming up, it has great potential in rice potential that its very much unknown”, Mr Korede noted.
Mohammed Auwal, who is the Vice President RIFAN for North West, said rice production in the region has been massive despite banditry and flood.
He explained that RIFAN plans to do 2 cropping season within the dry season in an effort to recover the losses experienced during the flood and lockdown.
“Even though we have issue of banditry, but this year, there was a massive production of rice, people have planted en masse, every little space that can produce rice has been cultivated, so that will compensate for whatever that is happening in any location, so in terms of the output, there won’t be any difference.
“RIFAN has been consulting with the government, we already have plans in place, instead of doing one dry season, we are going to do 2 dry season this year, so we are going to have 2 cropping season within the dry season.
“The first cropping season will come by the end of this month, then we harvest in January, and in February, we plant again, we will harvest in June, by that time, rain has started falling then we plant again.
“So, we are going to utilise the entire season for rice production and that will take care of all these losses”, he noted.
In South East, the RIFAN Vice President for the region, Mrs EjimNnenna said the region experienced 4 weeks of sunshine which generated a lot of dust, after which rain fell and washed the dust into the rice farms.
“In the South East, we produce rice enough because we have that flat land and we have land that is well soaked. Rice production is our main occupation because our area is always water logged and rice thrive so much in water.
“In the South East, we had 4 weeks of undiluted sunshine which generated a lot of dust within the period as if harmattan has come when rice has already been planted, so along the line, the rain returned, it washed away those sand and packed them to the rice, meaning that there is drought, and there is flooding.
“So, for us it’s counting of losses, but we know that no matter what, we still have something to come home with no matter how small”, she said.
The National President of RIFAN, AlhajiAminuGoronyo said despite the flood and lockdown, farmers were still planning to achieve 9 to 11 million metric tons of rice this year.
“Despite all the challenges of Covid-19 lockdown, flood, insecurity and, we are still expecting between 9 to 11 million metric tons of rice this year.
“Nigerians should not panic, in the next few weeks the prices of rice will come down, the CBN has done their best for us .We have started harvest, and between now and four weeks the prices of milled rice will come down”, Goronyo said.
On the cost of rice, he said “the cost of price of rice is associated with the fact that dollar has appreciated despite that we are not importing rice, this is because of the input that we buy. We convert Naira to buy the input that we give to the farmers.
An Assistant Director in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and a member, rice value team Dr Musa Olasupo, said “there are mitigants for almost every risk and proactively, the CBN has done this, for those farmers, they have their farms covered in area yield index insurance scheme, what this covers is that if there are eventualities like this, the insurer will be able to pay back farmers for the yield that is expected from that farm.
“Now, we have them on the field, they are engaging the farmers. We are trying to bring the farmers back to cultivate this dry season so they don’t lose out thereby by getting discouraged.
On the high price of rice in the market, Olasupo said the prices are actually controlled by demand and supply.
“If you look at it, when we had the cheapest rice was when we were flooded with imported rice, so what we will look at what is a cost of a bag locally produced rice in Nigeria compared to any of our neighbouring country or rice producing country in Africa.
“If you are picking price in isolation because of a particular region, then you don’t have a true reflection of what is the price of 50kg bag of rice in states where we have peak of production, we have this exceptions in the South where we don’t have mills and the challenge has been more of logistics.
“That’s why we are trying to encourage producers to actually mill rice in those zones where we don’t have milling facilities, so that the cost of logistics and the premium that is being given by distributors will be reduced to the barest minimum.
“Kano state for example have the largest milling capacity in Nigeria, the cost of 50kg bag of rice rice in farm gate or factory gate is about N16, 000 while they get it in the market about N17,000 and that will explain all.
“As at now, 100kg bag of paddy is between N130,000 to N140, 000, so the inefficiency is an arbitrage that is being put there by distributors and those involved in logistics. It is when we are able to have an efficiency along the value chain, then we can have a fair pricing across the entire zone, and we can have a standard price of rice nationwide.
Benedict Agbo, of the CBN Rice Commodity Working Group said the CBN was impressed with rice farmers in Nigeria.
“Before the advent of Anchor Borrower’s Program and rice revolution, the import bill for rice ran into hundreds of millions of dollars, but in 2018, cutting it down about $372 million to about $18.5 million so at least that has conserved some foreign reserves for the country.
“Again, in terms of output, before now, we were around second behind Egypt for rice, but in 2019 with our production of over 5.1 metric tons, we surpassed Egypt as number one in Africa, gradually the plan is by 2021/2022, we should be able to sustain ourselves and become a net exporter of rice”, he stated.
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