Kingdom to help Nigeria grow rice

The Nation

Nigeria's government has signed an agreement with the group and the Thai government to go into rice farming locally in the country, Nigeria's local newspaper Business Day reported last week.

A presidential source told the Business Day that such a proactive step had been taken to halt the shortage of rice in the country. The plan was also drawn up to reduce rice imports.

The World Bank last week warned that the world would ex-perience a shortage of rice, based on information released by the Indian government that it had no reserves to sell to the international market.

Thailand has been farming rice for centuries and has become the world's largest exporter of that staple.

Nigeria spends about US$267 million (Bt8.4 billion) yearly importing over two million metric tonnes of rice, while it produces 300 metric tonnes, representing 0.96 per cent of global output.

The yearly demand for rice in the country is put at over seven million metric tonnes. The country will need over three million metric tonnes to meet the shortfall.

The source said the involvement of the Vaswani group in the local production of rice in Nigeria would be a big boost for the country.

"We would be sure that henceforth the country would no longer experience a scarcity of rice. As a nation, we will be able to meet the growing demand for rice locally and that will in a way assist the government to tackle the problem of food scarcity," the source said.

The Vaswani Group and the Thai government are expected to kick-start the rice production programme before the end of the year, with the government providing about 30-per-cent equity, while the financing of the project will be strictly done by the respective investors.

Abba Sayyadi Ruma, minister of agriculture and water resources, had on assuming duty presented to President Umaru Yar'Adua a three-pronged programme on how to guarantee food security for the country.

Ruma, in an interview with a Business Day correspondent, confirmed that the government would focus attention on rice production, livestock and fisheries to boost food security.

"These areas constitute the direction of the government in the area of guaranteeing food security in the country. We have comparative advantage in the production of these food items and if we focus attention in these areas, we will be guaranteed food security in this country," the minister said.

"In spite of Nigeria's great potential for the production of wheat, rice and sugar, the country is still heavily dependent on the importation of these staple crops."

Ruma said agriculture "employs about two-thirds of the total labour force of the nation, provides a livelihood for the bulk of the rural population [nearly three-quarters of the poor live in the rural areas]."

He linked food insecurity in the country to the poor performance of the agriculture sector.