…Import hits 10-year excessive
Nigeria’s farmers are abandoning rice for different, extra worthwhile crops as world glut and better imports squeeze their income.
The worldwide rice market glut is fuelled by an Asian market oversupply, which has pressured its producers to hunt new markets or consolidate current ones in Africa.
The Asian glut, together with tariff elimination by the Nigerian authorities, has pushed rice imports into Nigeria to a 10-year excessive, thereby decreasing farmers’ earnings.
Nigeria imported 60,735 metric tons of rice from Thailand within the first 5 months of 2025, in response to knowledge from the Thai Rice Exporters Affiliation.
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The determine represents the nation’s highest rice imports from Thailand since 2016, forcing farmers to desert the grain cultivation after recording heavy losses from competitors with imported varieties.
The pattern is a problem to President Bola Tinubu’s plan to spice up meals manufacturing and drive meals safety.
“A lot of farmers rising rice are switching to millet, sorghum, sesame, and soybeans. It is because farmers are incurring big losses in rice cultivation,” mentioned Muhammad Augie, former state chairman, Rice Farmers Affiliation, Kebbi chapter.
Augie famous that the worldwide rice glut is hurting native paddy costs, saying the important thing staple consumed by most households can’t compete favourably owing to excessive manufacturing prices, which is forcing farmers to promote at a loss.
“There’s a sharp fall in world rice costs owing to the glut in Asia. However it’s getting costlier to domesticate rice regionally and promote at a price that’s worthwhile,” he mentioned, noting that millers will not be prepared to purchase at a price that’s worthwhile for farmers.
Ibrahim Idris, a rice farmer in Yamaltu/Deba Native Authorities Space of Gombe, mentioned rising rice is not worthwhile attributable to low demand and excessive enter prices.
“I take advantage of three baggage of NPK (fertiliser) and two baggage of urea for a hectare of rice farmland. I would like a minimum of N160,000 for fertiliser alone along with different prices,” Idris defined.
“How do I make a revenue with this excessive value when a 100kg bag of paddy is offered for N40,000?” he requested.
In line with him, millers are reluctant to pay extra for paddy as a result of they wish to be aggressive, noting that low-cost overseas rice has flooded the market owing to the worldwide glut.
“In the event you go to the market, you see overseas rice in all places, and they’re cheaper. The millers, too, wish to make income, so they don’t wish to purchase paddy at greater costs,” he mentioned.
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He famous that some millers are even importing paddy from Asia to mill regionally.
Haruna Mohamed, a rice farmer in Jigawa, mentioned he has diminished his manufacturing hectarage from 12 to 5 owing to low demand and excessive manufacturing prices.
“Costs of all farm inputs have doubled inside a yr, however for some crops, you’ll nonetheless be worthwhile due to their excessive demand,” he mentioned.
“This isn’t the case with rice as a result of the costs of paddy have decreased drastically, and it’s not worthwhile to domesticate it,” he defined.
“It pays me to develop sesame and sorghum fairly than rice as a result of the demand for these merchandise is excessive and their costs are engaging,” he famous.
Globally, rice costs have tumbled to multi-year lows and are prone to fall additional with a bumper Asian harvest and bulging Indian stockpiles.
Whereas these potential decrease costs profit Nigerian customers, they’re squeezing the meagre earnings of smallholder farmers within the nation.
World rice output is anticipated to succeed in a file 543.6 million metric tons in 2024/25, up from 535.4 million tons the earlier yr, in response to estimates from the Meals and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The overall world provide, together with shares, is at 743 million tons, above demand, which is anticipated to rise to 539.4 million tons, in response to the FAO estimates.
The low value and glut within the world rice market are incentives for merchants to import the grain in massive volumes, Africanfarmer Mogaji, an agribusiness advisor and farmer, mentioned in a response to questions.
Learn additionally: Global rice prices projected to drop 11% in 2025 on favourable weather
In line with him, the market is flooded with imported rice that’s cheaper than regionally produced varieties. “Most of our regionally produced items can’t compete with imported produce,” he mentioned, noting that it prices a median producer extra to provide than their counterparts.
He said that each rice millers and farmers are presently being squeezed by a budget imports.
Decrease rice manufacturing
Information from a 2024 report by the US Division of Agriculture (USDA) on Nigeria’s rice manufacturing confirmed that the nation’s rice manufacturing declined by 6.7 % within the 2024/2025 season to five.23 million metric tons (MT) from 5.61 million MT within the 2023/2024 season.
The information from the report indicated that the determine is the bottom the nation has recorded since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic obstructed farming actions.
