By Udeme Clement

The former Chairman, Agriculture, Non-oil Export Trade Group, Lagos Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (LACCIMA), Dr. Godwin Oyediji, has called on all tiers of government to put measures in place to boost production of rice locally to curtail excessive importation of the item.

Oyediji said this sequel to the declaration by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), revealing that Nigeria spent over N474billion on rice importation between 2012 and 2015.

According to him, “Talking about rice production in Nigeria, the major problem is processing this food item, because the challenge is also associated with high cost of operation. So, some of the things we need now  include installation of major equipment and other machines for local farmers to process rice easily in the country. This implies that government not only at the federal level, but sub-national governments should give grants to local producers of rice to enhance processing the item locally. Once this is done, we can grow local capacity in rice production to meet the increasing population in the country”

He went on, “Nigeria should look at what advanced countries are doing to boost their capacity in rice production to curtail importation. For instance,  look at what the United Kingdom (UK) is doing to enhance rice production within their country. The government of UK gives incentives of 50 percent to their local producers of rice to increase the production capacity locally. So, all tiers of government can give grants and other forms of incentives to encourage local producers of rice in the country”.

On if Nigerian farmers have the capability to produce enough rice to meet the increasing demand in the market, he said, “Yes. Currently, we are producing but processing it to the final stage of consumption is a challenge. So, like I said earlier, we need modern and sophisticated equipment to match production and processing of the item like what obtains in advanced countries.”

He continued, “If we are able to achieve this, the rate of rice importation will reduce. This will in turn curtail capital flight from the system. What people should realise is that we need to look inward to grow our economy in agriculture, manufacturing, human capital development and other aspects we need to move forward as a country. For instance, we have other food items like apple, yam, cassava, garri, and many other things we can eat. So, why should we depend on importation of what we can even produce locally.

“We need to also change our food orientation and move away from depending on  imported food items to eat our own local food. Our parents ate our local food and enjoyed good health better than what we are experiencing now.”

However, the CBN before declaration of over N474billion on rice importation maintained that there was no going back on foreign exchange restriction for importers of   rice, fish and other commodities that should be produced locally. The CBN’s governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, expressed displeasure about the high bill on rice importation, which has resulted in huge unsold stock of paddy rice cultivated by local farmers.

He stressed, “Those thinking that the bank’s decision to ban importers of rice, fish and other items from the official foreign exchange market will be reversed should forget such idea. I am aware that some people got some quotas and they imported large quantities of rice above the quotas they were granted and the Nigeria Customs Service has written them to pay. We are going to enforce it and we will go to the highest level to enforce this to ensure that they pay.”