By Morenike Taire

Following a very rich career spanning media, banking and consultancy, Olubunmi Iyabo Akinkugbe  veered into manufacturing. Little did she know that she would not only get into the rice trade, she would end up being an authority on it, having brought in her wealth of knowledge into the space. She chats with Vanguard. 

Can you share your remarkable journey into the rice trade?

I started the local rice business in December 2016. What happened was, I was in Abuja for six weeks consulting for the World Bank and then, Global Fund on two different projects. When I got to Lagos, all I saw was imported rice and I had got used to local rice in Abuja. I asked people if they knew where I could get local rice and they said they didn’t even know anything about local rice. So, I got two bags and gave them out as samples, then asked them if they would be buying from me and they said yes. That was how I started selling.

Because it was a business I now wanted to do, I started looking for large quantities of local rice. At that time, quality was not the main thing, it was availability.  I paid for rice and didn’t get it- I met the seller and the search for quality became very prominent and compulsory because at a time, I bought rice that had stones. 

How did you scale the initial hurdles?

I went to the market and spoke to Baba Jamiu, now late. He was the head of Yorubas selling grains in the market and he told me that if I wanted to be doing this business, I had to leave my comfort zone.

Almost everyday for like three weeks, I was going and I understood it. If you buy rice that has stones, how to treat it, if you buy rice that has insects, how one should treat it. He also took me through a lot of things which are the secrets of the business.  

I had to visit the mills. Now that I knew the grains, I realised that many people in Lagos don’t eat short grains although there’s no difference.  The long and short grains are the same after cooking.  I had to go to the mills and stayed with mills that sold the local long grains  and basically, the one I liked was faro, which is the rice grain that was brought by our former Agric Minister, Akinwumi Adesina. When I go to the mill I ask them, do you have Faro 44?  Occasionally if I don’t find 44 I can sell 42. Now there’s Faro 7l.   I know the grains so I can always identify  the ones that I  want.

Were there actual rice pyramids during the Buhari administration?

I saw the rice pyramids on social media like everyone else. I didn’t go to Abuja to see. If I went to the mills, I wasn’t looking for pyramids. I was looking at the processes. That was not my priority. I saw self-sufficiency.  

During Buhari’s regime, he said rice should not be brought in through the land borders. It was okay for local production. We sold. For a  lot of people, even if they preferred foreign rice,   it wasn’t   available.  The middlemen would buy up the paddy rice- the one we buy and mill –  therefore the prices of paddy went up and the prices of the finished rice also went up. It was difficult for people to buy so there was scarcity.  Also, I  think one of the borders, maybe Niger border,  was porous. Early last year, we had to buy paddy from a neighbouring country. The driver was bringing it. When it got to   the road, they transferred our money back. Apparently, some people had paid for it. 

When they noticed the scarcity, prices went up apart from the  value of naira. By December, we were selling good local rice for N110,000.  Apart from milling the rice, there is the cost of transportation. Remember that four or five years ago, if I brought in a trailer load of rice for N600, 000, by last year, we were paying N1.8 million. Then you will do insurance and all these stops by the police and whatever, on the way, how many people can afford that?

So we had to take money from the banks as well and pay interest. It was very, very expensive.  A lot of people just removed their hands.

Are we self-sufficient now? If not, what is standing between us and self-sufficiency?

Remember there’s competition between imported rice which is mostly smuggled, and local rice. 

Indian rice has flooded Benin Republic so prices have come down. I don’t sell imported rice because of wahala of Customs. You are not even sure the way they bring it in. 

What can government do to enable your own end of the value chain?

There are so many things government can do to support the farmers. If they can bring the program that Akinwumi Adesina did as minister where the farmers had their phones and they are being given fertiliser. Also, the state governments can give hectares of land to rice farmers. One of the major mills in Bauchi that I buy from, has been given hectares of land by the state government and they will be planting so they can have enough paddy for themselves instead of depending on middlemen who stock when the harvest is plenty then bring when there is scarcity. They even cause the scarcity. 

Also, if they can convert the trailers free to CNG for these transporters, it will bring down the cost of transportation. If anything happens, you have insurance to contend with. A lot of traders now do 75 bags because prices are crashing and like I said, there’s competition between local and foreign rice. People will tell you now that rice is N59,000 but local rice is N88,000. Even Eko rice is N82,000. Government can also bring us, the traders, together so that we can be giving them feedback. We are not asking them for grants. We are different from the other associations.

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