The Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) has urged the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders to support farmers to bridge the gap created by ban on rice importation in the country.

Mr Victor Korede, the South-West Vice President made this call during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Tuesday.

He said the association has agreed to fill the gap created by the proposed total ban on importation of foreign rice and ensure that this plan is achieved from 2019.

He said the RIFAN can feed the entire country with quality rice if they are adequately supported by the government and relevant stakeholders.

According to him, the annual consumption demand for rice in Nigeria is about 7.9 million tonnes.

“As of the middle of 2017, local rice production only increased to about six million tonnes.

“The farmers produced no fewer than nine million tonnes of rice in 2018 while targeting to produce 14 million tonnes.

“Our target in 2018 was to produce 14million tonnes but we made only 9 million tonnes, this was due to the incessant floods that ravaged many farms across the country.

“We would do our best to meet our target this year by God’s grace, although we are yet to explore our potentials in rice farming, especially in Oyo state.

“An average farmer cannot afford the perennial high cost of land clearing, this is part of the challenges facing the farmers and it hinders our production.

“Labour scarcity is on the increase as well as cost of herbicides and other equipment, cluster farming is also difficult to practice due to the land clearing issue,” he said.

The vice president called on the government to continue to make rural roads pliable to make it easy and cheaper for farmers to transport their commodity to the market.

He emphasised that the benefits of Anchor Borrowers programme would be more effective if cost of harvesting was looked into, while urging off takers to assist farmers in this regard.

“Farm insurance should be made more effective rather than being on papers, timely payment of claims, especially by Nigeria Agriculture Insurance Corporation NAIC, will encourage farmers.

“Also, rice value chain in terms of small scale processors should be encouraged; importance of Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) weather forecast should be given a pride of place by our information agencies.

“We acknowledge God and the Federal Government for their support so far, we acknowledge the success of anchor borrower programme, it has boosted our production, closed gaps between farmers and processors.

“The initial ban on rice importation had opened up market to farmers with attending effect of developing our production standard,” he said.

He advocated for capacity building and bringing researchers and farmers together for a positive impact on their product.

The Federal Government should consider total ban on importation of foreign parboiled rice completely to promote production and consumption of local rice in the country.

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘A’, since 2017, has vowed to continue to enforce the Federal Government’s rice policy that prohibits the importation of foreign parboiled rice.

The policy was put in place to encourage local rice production and aimed at making Nigeria self-sufficient in rice production and creating more employment opportunities for the youths.

Aside the ban on importation of rice from the land border, the Federal Government has technically ban importation of rice through seaports as Customs vowed not to issue any Form ‘M’ to rice importers.

The Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had introduced Anchor Borrowers Programme to boost cotton and rice production in the country. (NAN)

Jan. 15, 2019 @ 12:50 GMT |