Stakeholders Seek End to Selective Waivers, Smuggling, Market Distortions in Rice Industry

▪︎ Say imported commodity pose risks to economy, call for transparent, time-bound, equitable trade incentives

James Emejo in Abuja

Stakeholders in the rice industry have raised the alarm over the existential threat facing the country’s rice value chain due to policy distortions, selective import waivers, and unchecked smuggling.

They said the rice industry, which has seen over two decades of growth through public-private investments, now faces a potential collapse if immediate corrective actions are not taken.

Speaking at a media briefing over the weekend in Abuja, Chairman, Board of Trustees

Competitive African Rice Forum – Nigeria Chapter (CARF-FSD Nigeria), Peter Dama, said over 13 million metric tonnes of domestic milling capacity had been installed nationwide — enough to meet and exceed national demand. 

He, however, lamented that the existing productive capacity was being grossly underutilised as imported and smuggled rice flood the market.

The forum  represents a broad coalition of rice farmers, processors, millers, marketers, NGOs, and development partners.

Dama further warned that the 2024 import waiver undermined a decade of progress in local rice revolution. 

According to him, in July 2024, the federal government granted a 180-day duty waiver on the importation of key food items, including husked brown rice, which took effect in 2024. 

He noted that while intended to temporarily reduce food prices and combat hoarding, the waiver unintentionally triggered a sharp downturn in local rice market activity.

According to him, the ripple effects of the waiver are still crippling production, reducing future planting interest, and destabilising the rice sector’s economic foundation.

He said beyond waivers, massive inflows of smuggled rice — often substandard and unregulated — continue to saturate Nigerian markets through porous borders, making legitimate  millers and processors uncompetitive.

The said the situation furter undermined health standards and food safety, exposed border communities to the influence of criminal trade networks, and erased market confidence for smallholder farmers, cooperatives, and agribusinesses who play by the rules among others. 

The group further claimed that as a result, paddy demand collapsed, leaving farmers with unsold harvests while local mills scaled down or shut down operations due to inability to compete with subsidised imports.

They also lamented mounting rural job losses across rice-producing states, including Kebbi, Kano, Ebonyi, Plateau, Nasarawa, Jigawa, Ekiti, and Benue, Akwa Ibom, Adamawa and a host of other states.

Youth employment and female-led processing clusters were decimated, reversing years of economic inclusion efforts, they added.

Among other things,  CARF-FSD recommended an end to selective import waivers on rice and related food commodities, stressing that all trade incentives should be transparent, time-bound, and equitable.

The forum further reaffirmed rice as a protected strategic crop, deserving of policy continuity to protect over five million livelihoods directly dependent on its value chain.

They further called for strengthening Nigeria Customs Service (NCS)’s operations to seal off key smuggling corridors and deploy rapid-response border enforcement, and create a national rice buffer stock and offtake mechanism to stabilise market prices during harvest cycles.

They urged the government to support paddy production through access to irrigation where we can have double paddy production circle that is through rain fall and irrigation, supply of affordable inputs, mechanisation, and affordable low interest agriculture financing.

The group said, “Nigeria’s rice value chain is not the source of food inflation — it is the most scalable, inclusive and solution available. If protected and empowered, the industry can feed the country, reduce import dependence, create jobs, and anchor rural development.

“CARF-FSD Nigeria has been supporting the government and is always ready to support the government in building a rice-secure, which is economically stable, and politically safe for Nigeria.”