Rice and Border Closure Notes
The common reason adduced for the closure of the border is the protection of our rice industry and to force Nigerians to substitute foreign rice with local varieties.
Two of the biggest flaws of the policy are:
1. Miscomprehension of the appetite of Nigerians for foreign rice and all things foreign.
Nigerians talk a good game, but are hopelessly addicted to all things foreign including rice. The situation is so bad that some enterprising criminals are now mixing sorghum with local rice and selling them in foreign bags of rice and Nigerians are paying a premium.
No one has time to wash rice like I observed growing up, you can wash rice and remove stones, but tell that to Nigerians, they will abuse you about how sophisticated they are.
Bottom line unless the government has rock hard determination it remains to be seen how long Nigerians will tolerate feasting on local rice, despite all the noise.
Nigerians are grounded in their idea of sophistication and taste and cannot be weaned off this foreign addiction, despite all the noise and they will condemn you for wishing them bad to use Nigerian substitute.
2. Following up on the refusal to use Nigerian aba made substitutes is the General poor quality of indigenously packaged and grown rice. From the cut, to the hollowness, to being unpolished, its beggars for improvement.
Nigeria’s Agricultural policy has focused on only fertilizer and a few tractors, but is weak on industrial processing, storage and quality controls resulting in poor quality.
In the area of storage, one wonders whether the government even has storage silos for rice to bridge supply gaps during seasons when rice is not being harvested. this absence can be seen in the rise in the cost of domestic rice, when it should intuitively see a drop in price from patronage.
There are also no financial risk management or insurance protections for peasant farmers who produce the rice or security either, there are also few visible cooperatives and a monopoly of commodities by merchants like Dangote.
This obvious lack of quality rears its head as Nigerian rice is usually banned from exports by foreign countries because of poor controls and the little that gets exported has to meet vigorous testing and safety controls, it’s the reason why diasporans have the best African food money can buy all packaged and monetized something unavailable in Nigeria except at South African based ShopRite.
Conclusion
Despite the narrative lies Nigerians tell themselves it should be obvious that we need to build and restore our nonexistent systems and quality procedures, value chain and systemic protections to benefit from this necessary border closure.
Nigeria also needs to focus resources on subsistent rice processing equipment and rail links to move local rice to urban centers at a faster rate.
China closed its border for 25 years prior to its industrialization and it is hoped that Nigeria can withstand and wean itself off foreign addiction into more areas beyond rice to diversify its economy organically.
By Terhemba Osuji
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