Nigeria to become rice exporter in 2018

The Federal Government on Tuesday said Nigeria would soon join Thailand
and India as a major exporters of rice to the international market.
The Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, stated this while
delivering a keynote address at the opening of the 2014 African Green
Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Addis Ababa.
Adesina said that Nigeria had within the past four years turned the
tide of being the second largest importer of rice in the world after
China to being a producer of the commodity.
“As Minister of Agriculture in Nigeria, with my previous research work
and knowledge of the potential of the improved rice varieties, we
immediately set the target for Nigeria to become self-sufficient in
rice.
“We had turned the corner and reached close to 80 per cent of our new
rice policy which has attracted 1.6 billion dollars of private sector
investments.
“We expect that Nigeria will become a net exporter of rice, just like
Thailand or India, within the next four years,” he said.
He said that the national paddy rice production rose by an additional
seven million metric tonnes while net incomes of farmers rose by 2.5
billion dollars within the period.
Adesina said that Nigeria achieved the height through policies that
encouraged private seed companies to produce “foundation and commercial
seeds.”
“This removed the monopoly of the government over foundation seeds and
unlocked the power of seed companies to work directly with plant
breeders to develop their own foundation seeds.
“Farmers were provided with subsidized farm inputs for seeds and
fertilizers via electronic vouchers on their mobile phones. We launched
dry season rice production to complement wet season rice production.
“The impact was massive; between 2012 and 2014, six million rice
farmers were reached with the improved rice varieties. Total cumulative
cultivated rice area rose by two million hectares,“ he said.
Adesina attributed the success to “science and technology matched with
supportive policy instruments to drive impacts at scale.”
“I recall my time as a scientist in the mid-1990s at the West Africa
Rice Development Association in Cote d’Ivoire, when the New Rice for
Africa (NERICA) was being developed.
“The new varieties were adapted to conditions of smallholder farmers
and gave very good yields. The challenge was how to ensure their
adoption by farmers at scale,” he said.
The minister, however, said despite the gains by Nigeria and other
African nations, malnutrition remained a perennial problem.
He said that about 80 per cent of the “World’s stunted children live
in just 14 countries of which eight are in Africa.
“Today there exist bio-fortified crops such as pro-vitamin A cassava,
orange flesh sweet potato, high iron beans, which are being grown by
farmers in Nigeria, Rwanda, Kenya and Mozambique.
“Of the 1.5 million farming households now growing bio-fortified food
crops, 1.4 million are in Africa. So, the challenge is no longer the
science of bio-fortification.
“Our challenge as policy makers now is to build up demand and scale up
bio-fortified crops to reach millions of households.