The cost of rice is skyrocketing in Nigeria — and farmers are worried people won't be able to afford it for much longer

• Nigeria's economy has relied on oil for decades, but after prices fell, the government started investing in rice.
• In August, Nigeria closed its borders to land imports in an effort to boost domestic rice production.
• But farmers are having trouble meeting demand because many are still harvesting the grain by hand.
• As the price of rice increases, farmers worry that the staple food will no longer be accessible to most Nigerians.

Nigeria is the No. 1 consumer of rice in all of Africa.

And short domestic supply has made prices skyrocket. 

Farmers are whacking at these giant piles of stalks for little tiny grains of rice.

Without machinery or irrigation, harvesting this land still relies on manual labor.

Since the Nigerian government shut its borders to rice imports, it's these farmers who have had to bear the burden of producing enough of the crop to feed the country.

Iveren Asan, rice miller: "We are doing some of the process manually so we cannot meet the demand."

A 50-kilogram bag of rice costs nearly double what it did last July, before the borders were closed.

Nigeria closed its borders to land imports in an effort to boost rice production within the country. Getty Images

Naomi Nguher, Lagos resident: "Based on my budget of what I came to the market with, I couldn't afford it, so I have to buy in small quantity."

While farmers say they'll benefit from that in the near term, they're concerned about the long term.

Abraham Hon, rice farmer: "We expect more money in the pockets for this year."

"We will reach a point where people who are buying rice cannot afford to buy rice."

It all goes back to the oil boom of the 1970s, which Nigeria capitalized on to become Africa's largest economy.

Crude and oil products were bringing in close to 90% of the country's foreign exchange earnings.

And for decades, Nigeria was using that revenue to import food while its own agribusiness declined. 

But after global oil prices plummeted in 2014, the government began to rethink its dependence on the resource and started investing in rice — a staple food consumed across all of Nigeria's geopolitical zones and socioeconomic classes.

In August 2019, the country closed its land borders to boost local production and stop the inflow of foreign rice. Domestic output has gone up, but it hasn't come close to making up for the loss from imports.

Abraham Hon, rice farmer: "We have large demand arising but less supply."

Years of government neglect have meant that small-scale farmers, who account for 80% of the country's rice production, are now trying to provide for Nigeria's consumption of 7 million tons of rice a year — often with just their bare hands.

Farmers worry the price of rice is rising beyond what most Nigerians can afford.
Reuters

Thomas Tyawwa Maji, rice farmer: "We don't have tractor, we have not been accessing fertilizer, we have not been accessing chemicals and all that. Even the harvester. We have not been accessing any, so our production is very low."

And what is produced sells out quickly. Farmers say they've been bombarded with new buyers from across the country.

Asan: "As we are here, people are buying it and taking it to Port Harcourt, Lagos, and other states. They are not just using it here."

While these farmers have made a little more money than usual, it hasn't been enough to purchase machines that could foster large-scale production.

The Nigerian government has tried to help farmers by offering grants and low-interest loans, but the process of getting funding — which may require getting a land title or registering for a cooperative society — isn't always straightforward or accessible to rural communities.

Farmers fear that if this gap between domestic supply and demand keeps up, rice will no longer be affordable or available to most Nigerians.

Hon: "They will be looking at other alternatives to get energy or get food on their table, so that is not, in the long term, in the interest of we the rice farmers."

Right now, it's these small-scale rice farmers who are self-sufficient: planting, harvesting, leveling out roads, and taking their crops to market on their own.

But Nigeria's aim to become a self-sufficient food economy still has a long way to go.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Insider@insider.com (Hannah Jiang,Kaitlyn Wang,Mark Abadi)
Business Insider February 20, 2020, 8:54 PM GMT

Source: Yahoo.com/news