The Rice Miller’s, Association of Nigeria, RIMAN scheduled to release about 60,000 metric tonnes of rice to the market declared penultimate Thursday that they lack enough paddy in Nigeria for the production of rice in commercial quantities, as they attributed this to the withdrawal of services at the farms by farmers due to insecurity.
RIMAN President Peter Dama stated that a lot of farmers have withdrawn services on the farms due to insecurity. This is an addition to the effects of subsidy removal on fuel.
“This did not only affect farmers”, Dama said adding that “but the entire production value chain for rice. And not only rice, but all other food stuff in this country. So I think everybody is experiencing this in one form or the other. And you will agree with me that it is not only rice, the entire food sector is affected,” he stated.
Early this month, President Bola Tinubu directed the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to release about 42,000MT of maize, millet and other commodities from the national strategic reserves in order to address the rising cost of food in Nigeria.
But the RIMAN president stated that there was not enough paddy locally to produce rice, except if rice processors would import paddy, adding that such imports would depend on the availability of dollars.
Dama also noted that the floating of the naira had made it tough for rice millers to import spare parts for some of their machines.
“Now, you will add all those costs to your own production, and you don’t expect this person to go and sell at a loss. A lot of my members collected loans and they have to pay back. When you don’t pay back when it is due, the interest rates will go up. These are the predicaments of my association,” Dama stated.
Meanwhile, he noted that the government did not have any discussion with his association with respect to the provision of 60,000MT of rice, but noted that the discussion could have been with rice processors.
He said “I think when the minister made that statement, he must be referring to other rice millers because with my own association, which is the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria, we’ve never had any discussion to that effect.
“So you may have to speak with bigger millers or processors, probably those are the ones they had discussions with. I think the minister must have made a mistake by saying rice millers because nobody invited the Rice Millers Association of Nigeria, probably it is the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria.”
When contacted, the Director-General, Rice Processors Association of Nigeria, Andy Ekwelem, confirmed that the government had discussions with his members but said he would not give details on the phone.
“Yes the government met with us, but I’m not going to speak with you about it over the phone,” he stated.