By Mohammed Kandi
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has lauded the Federal Government’s policy on rice, which is a core strategy under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).
In a statement by Tony Ohaeri, Director Information and Protocol in the ministry, Adesina said the police had succeeded beyond expectations, adding that, “the proposed tariff regime on the commodity is needed to protect local investors in rice, including farmers and millers, as well as create jobs and wealth for Nigerians.”
Adesina also said the Federal Government and forward looking stakeholders in the rice sector are determined to reduce the ridiculously high foreign exchange of over N365 billion being spent annually on rice import.
He added that Nigeria had the capacity to become not only self-sufficient, but a net exporter of rice.
According to Adesina, “It made no sense at all that Nigeria, with an arable land area of 84 million of arable land, is the second largest importer of rice in the world.”
The country, he said, definitely can grow rice and end the decades of dependence on rice imports from India and Thailand, as they don’t have anything that we do not have to produce rice.
He said: “It is time we realized that the more Nigeria imported food items that can be grown locally, the less local production and the high level of unemployment and the worse our national insecurity.”
Adesina, however, argued that the rice importers simply want to take advantage of huge profits they would make from the cheap rice imports to harp on the need to lower rice tariffs.
The Minister said: “Nigeria is not an exemption in using high tariffs on rice. All over the world, rice is the most protected and subsidized of all commodities, with tariffs, tariff-rate quotas and tariff escalation for processing and value added.”
“The US spends on average $1 billion per year in subsidy support, as well as high tariffs on rice imports. Analysts show that tariffs on rice imports and subsidies may account for 75% of incomes of farmers in rice producing countries. This leads to a depression of world price for rice, displacing local production and creating poverty for millions of rice farmers in rice importing countries.
“India, which spends a US $7 billion on market price support has bounded tariff level of 131% on imported rice, with effective import duty of 70-80%,” Adesina explained.
