Can guaranteed minimum price enhance rice production?

Rice is one of Nigeria’s major staple foods that, though produced in large quantity in the country with potentials for increase in production, yet the country is a net importer of. Several billions of naira are being spent in the importation of rice annually.   Several government policies were put in place with a view to […]

Rice is one of Nigeria’s major staple foods that, though produced in large quantity in the country with potentials for increase in production, yet the country is a net importer of. Several billions of naira are being spent in the importation of rice annually.   
Several government policies were put in place with a view to increasing local production of rice that include high customs duty charged on rice importation, alleged purchase of rice milling machines and subsequent distribution to rice producing states to enhance production, the alleged provision of federal government support to rice farmers and lately the inclusion of rice in the GMP.
Rice farmers that spoke to Daily Trust in the major rice producing states of Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano and Jigawa, said no rice mill has been installed in their states by the federal government or any form of support given to them other than three bags of fertiliser and some quantity of seeds under the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) which only reached a certain percent of people.
One of the rice farmers in Zamfara State, Muhammad Bello Bakyasuwa, said, “I read about the guaranteed minimum price in the newspapers but government has not explained how that arrangement will work. Is it government that will come and buy the rice or the businessmen? What will happen if the businessmen refused to buy at that rate? If it is government that will come and buy, how are we sure they will come and buy at the right time,” he asked.
But Secretary of the Water Users Association of Bakalori irrigation project who is also a rice farmer, Alhaji Aliyu Zaki Mafara, said the problems bedeviling rice farming in Nigeria are not what the guaranteed minimum price alone can solve as there are a lot of issues with mechanisation, access to bank loans, inputs and so on that need solution.
“First, the minister of agric and that of water resources should collaborate to support farming activities at the river basins. Provide us with tractors, hybrid seeds, enough fertiliser at the right time, step up the fight against birds and other insects that are destroying our crops, mechanise our farming system by providing us with combined harvesters and planters and provide us with rice mills.
“Most of these things can be provided to our associations on hire-purchase. We shall operate as an industry and pay back over time. The federal government announced that they will bring a rice mill to Bakalori. The state government has even provided a site for them but nothing is heard of it again.
“We have 15 tractors in Bakalori that were provided by the Minister of Water Resources. Some of them have broken down. But about five are still working. We do not have a single combined harvester or planter here, and we need them. About two years ago, the minister of agric promised to provide us with a tractor hire service centre. We are still awaiting that,” he said.
When this reporter visited the 25,000 hectares irrigation area where several metric tonnes of rice and other crops are harvested thrice a year, only one locally fabricated rice thresher was seen in the entire area with women and children, that could not afford or wait for the thresher, using sticks to beat their rice on the ground as an alternative means of threshing.
The case in Goronyo irrigation area of Sokoto State is not different as the rice farmers association chairman of the area, Alhaji Ibrahim Ado Taloka Goronyo, said one major problem with rice farming in Nigeria is low yield, adding, “we are harvesting below three tonnes per hectare of rice even though rice farmers in the countries that have improved seeds and adequate fertilizer harvest triple or more of what we are getting.”
Most of the researchers that spoke to Daily Trust on the failure of Nigerian researchers to develop high yielding, improved rice seeds said though the problem of low yield is not only from the seeds, the research institutes in the country are grossly underfunded.
They mention other reasons associated to low yield to include inadequate application of fertilizer, lack of soil testing to know what it requires and non-mechanisation of farms in the country.  
National President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Engineer Kabiru Ibrahim, said low yield in crops is discouraging farmers as it is reducing their income, adding, “the Zimbabwean farmers that are here in Kwara State are producing seven tonnes per hectare.
“In Katsina State, the southern part is like the food basket of the state. There, if you are very lucky, with this hybrid seeds and all that, you can produce up to four tonnes per hectare but the average yield for Nigeria is only two tonnes. So this is the problem. We must look at agriculture beyond rhetoric, we must do it properly. We must fund agriculture, we must have deliberate efforts in making agric important to our economy,” he said.