19 Aug
Cereal, News, Nigeria

Nigeria Rice Imports Average 1.5m Tonnes Annually

Investigations have revealed that between 2003 and 2013, Nigeria may have imported rice to the tune of 17,206,077 tonnes with an average import at 1,564,188 million, NaijaAgroNet can authoritatively report.


According to the Statistics Division of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an intergovernmental organization of the United Nations with over 194 member nations, the division’s mission, NaijaAgroNet  gathered is to improve data collection and dissemination for development and the fight against global hunger and malnutrition.


These imports of 17,206,077 tonnes, NaijaAgroNet reports, came in the heels of against the total production of 114.3 million tonnes within the period under review including both calculated and official data as at the time of filing this report.



For the rice import in 2003, Nigeria recorded 1600701 tonnes, 1396692 in 2004, 1174071 in 2005, 974647 in 2006, 1215758 in 2007, 970787 in 2008, 1160671 in 2009 and 1882759 in 2010, while 2187419 was recorded in 2011 followed by 2455202 a year later, just as 2187370 was the tonnes of rice imported in 2013.


In addition, NaijaAgroNet  gathered that bulk of the data were unearthed from aggregation and includes the official, semi-official, estimated and or calculated data from the Nigerian government by FAO.


The imported tonnes of rice, NaijaAgroNet  investigations revealed may have been “rice in milled equivalent.“


Market watchers believed that despite the decline recorded by IRERP that obviously what was gathered as official data, semi-official or even aggregated were crossly in adequate considering the number of smuggled tonnes and the nation’s craze for foreign products which is not alien to agriculture produce.


This is despite the fact that most foreign rice imported into Nigeria takes averagely three to five months to be shipped into the country, therefore fortified thus missing relevant vitamins.


This much was what kept the cost of ‘foreign rice’ as its fondly called locally high, even as there is allegations of such chemical used in preserving the rice to have become instrumental to certain kind of cancer.


Noteworthy is that the initiative on Increased Rice Production and Export Programme (IRPEP) report, released in 2013 by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that it recorded some accomplishments.



These comprised of the discovery that both national and international research institutes working in Nigeria have developed over 52 rice varieties with potential yields of 28 tonnes of paddy per hectare and maturity periods ranging from 95 to 140 days.


IRPEP records also showed increase in the areas cultivated from 2.2 million hectare (ha) in 1999 to 2.8 million ha in 2006 and 3.2 million ha in 2007; while an increase was recorded in annual production from 3.3 million tonnes of milled rice in 2000 to 4.2 million tonnes in 2006, and 4.8 million tonnes in 2007. Although these represented significant increases in output, IRPEP equally highlighted that the targets of 6 million tonnes in 2005 and 9.8 million tonnes in 2007 were not achieved.


NaijaAgroNet  further quoted IRPEP as stating that increase in productivity per hectare as a result of the introduction of high-yielding NERICA rice variety and R-Box technology among others brought about the reduction in rice importation from 2.0 million tonnes in 2003 to less than 1.0 million tonnes in 2006 and 2007, thus, conserving foreign exchange.


Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops

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Pic: A graphic table of Nigeria’s rice import between 2003 and 2013

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13 Jun
Cereal, Nigeria

Exclusive: Nigeria, 36 other countries need external food assistance

Some 37 countries globally including Nigeria are in need of external food assistance, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisaton (FAO), reports NaijaAgroNet.

Other countries comprised of Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Iraq, and Kenya.


Equally affected based on FAO outline include Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Uganda, Yemen and Zimbabwe.


Also, FAO raised its forecast for global cereal production in 2016 to 2,539 million tonnes, up 17.3 million tonnes from its previous May projection and up 0.6 percent from last year’s harvest. 

Aggregate cereal production in Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDCs) is also forecast to increase to 420 million tonnes in 2016, led by a recovery in rice and wheat production in India after last year reduction due to El Niño-related drought.  That would be a 2.5 percent increase from last year’s “sharply reduced” level.


NaijaAgroNet, in spite of the improved world production prospects in 2016, output would still fall slightly short of the projected demand in 2016/17, meaning global stocks would need to be drawn down from their near-record level.

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08 May
Cereal, Crop

Outlook for cereals output improves slightly

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its latest Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, has raised the forecast for world cereal production in 2016 slightly to nearly 2,526 million tonnes, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This figure, NaijaAgroNet notes is virtually the same as in 2015 and potentially on course to be the second-largest global harvest ever.


According to FAO, the larger figure results almost entirely from improved prospects for wheat production, as winter weather conditions have been favourable for prospective yields in the European Union, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.


“At 717 million tonnes, the 2016 wheat output forecast remains 16 million tonnes short of last year’s record,” experts at FAO said.


The Cereal Supply and Demand Briefmade available to NaijaAgroNet, FAO says new production forecast for global coarse grains including barley, maize, millet, oats, rye and sorghum stands at 1,314 million tonnes, about one per cent below the 2015 output.


FAO, NaijaAgroNet gathered, left unchanged its worldwide rice production forecast at 495 million tonnes, about one per cent higher than the previous year, although the full impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon will not be clear for a few more months.


“World cereal utilization in the season ahead is expected to rise by only 1.1 percent due to slower growth in the use of cereals – especially wheat and barley – as livestock feed,” FAO said.


As a result, the world body also said that cereal stocks are likely to drop by 3.3 per cent or 21 million tonnes over the course of the new season, while stocks are forecast to drop most in Brazil, Thailand, India, China, Morocco, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Argentina and South Africa.


As said by FAO world trade in cereals is expected to decline slightly to 367 million tonnes with sharp drops in China’s imports of barley and sorghum as well as EU imports of maize, more than offsetting soaring imports of maize by drought-stricken countries in southern Africa.


Isaac Oyimah/GEE

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19 Mar
Africa, Agriculture, Cereal, New Technologies, Nigeria

Coming to Nigeria Soon: The Malanville Innovation Platform (IP) and Rice Parboiling Technologies

9 February 2016. The SARD-SC project rice component in collaboration with AfricaRice and INRAB have installed energy efficient GEM rice parboiling technologies and innovations in the Malanville Innovation Platform (IP) in the irrigated rice ecology of northern Benin Republic.

The formal launch of the Malanvile IP, which attracted almost 1000 women from the nooks and cranny of the country, witnessed the presence of policy makers such as the mayors of Malanville and Gaya, Niger. It also provided additional policy incentive to the operationalization of the IP.

To efficiently use and manage the Grain quality Enhancer, Energy, efficient and durable material rice technologies(GEM) facility, 538 women rice parboilers including 10 from Gaya in Niger, were trained on processing and adding value to locally produced rice. Over a period of two months, these women households learned skills on rice parboiling and value addition as well as the management of the GEM parboiling facility.

The training alone resulted in 8 tonnes of quality parboiled rice which is already attracting consumers within and outside the Malanville community. As part of the IP process, 12 youths (10 male and 2 female) are being facilitated to learn various skills on rice processing and adding value and operation of equipment and farming tools.

The formal opening was attended by the IITA/SARD-SC Coordinator, Dr Chrys Akem. He remarked that in general, the SARD-SC project has challenges in effectively addressing gender equity – active involvement of women in project activities. The deployment of the GEM rice parboiler in the Malanville IP has fully demonstrated that pairing gender sensitive technological innovation with institutional change, can significantly bring about gender mainstreaming in agricultural productivity programs and projects.

The Malanville IP also received milling machine and other farming equipment from AfricaRice through the Japan Emergency. One of the youths of the Malanville IP who was trained on the use of farming equipment indicated that with appropriate machinery, he realized that rice farming can be enjoyable and not a burden. He is motivated to start his own rice farm in addition to the help given to the household farms. The Mayor of Malanville, Dandakoe Inoussa said that “The GEM parboiler and other technologies and innovations should be rolled out in northern parts of Nigeria close to Malanville, as well as Gaya in Niger, because we are the same people. We share the same values and culture, and can easily share and learn productivity enhancing technologies and innovations to improve livelihoods.”

To date, over 1000 women households have been reached through the GEM technology and innovations in two IPs in Benin. The GEM is being rolled out in combination with enhanced packaging and branding of locally produced rice to attract urban rice consuming households and contribute to raising incomes of women and employment opportunities for youth in the rural economy. Already, Nasarawa in Nigeria and Gaya in Niger in consultation with their respective research institutes, have requested for the GEM technology and innovation and these will be deployed in Nigeria and later in Niger.

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