The look on restaurant owner Mame Couma Tandjigora’s face tells the story. She scowls, as many in her country might when asked about locally grown rice — a far bigger problem than it may seem.
“You have to sift it and soak it for a long time,” she said. “I prefer my Thai broken fragrant rice.”
The Senegalese government had what seemed a reasonable idea after last year’s food crisis: Have the country grow and eat its own rice instead of sticking with the practice of importing tonnes from Asia.
PHOTO: AFP
It was part of a bigger plan to achieve self-sufficiency in food production.
The Senegalese, who serve rice with so many meals, said no thanks. Why? That’s where it gets sticky.
Explanations range from taste to social standing to the legacy of colonialism. Whatever the reason, the government is now figuring out how to promote locally grown rice and hopes to import none of the staple by 2012.
It seems they may have a hard time achieving that goal. Last year, more than three quarters of the 800,000 tonnes of rice consumed by the Senegalese was imported from Asia.
The impetus for change came from the food crisis, which had sent prices of imported rice soaring. Senegal has since been pushing locally grown rice to rely less on agricultural imports, but despite good crops, much remains unsold.
Tandjigora, who prepares local dishes in a roadside restaurant in a busy neighborhood of Dakar, goes through 6kg of rice a day.
“Yesterday I served fish with rice and today I am making white rice to go with the Yassa chicken with onions and lemon,” she said.
While she does not want the rice grown in the Senegal valley, she said her mother and sister ate it.
“They say it is easier to digest and better for your health because there is less sugar in it,” she said.
That may or may not be true. In shops and restaurants throughout Senegal’s capital, however, sacks of imported rice are piled high and Senegalese rice is hard to find — and not because it’s sold out.
Ahmed Mbaye stocks no local rice in his corner grocery shop in Grand Dakar, but pink, blue and green sacs of Thai rice line the entrance.
“I only sell Thai rice. The stuff that is grown in this country, nobody wants to buy it,” Mbaye said.
According to the latest official estimates — disputed by some producers — the rice harvest will be at 508,481 tonnes for this year, up 25 percent compared with last year.
The figures have prompted a promise from Senegal’s agriculture minister that the country “will not import a single kernel of rice in 2012.”
What if no one eats it?
One expert blamed the problem on the legacy of colonialism.
“It dates back to the colonization,” said Wore Gana Seck, the head of the commission for durable development and environment at Senegal’s economic and social council. “Before the Senegalese ate millet and sorghum, but the French imposed a monoculture of peanuts on farmers and imported broken rice from their other colony Indochina for the Senegalese to eat.”
The habit stuck, and eating broken imported rice has become a status symbol here, aid and development charity Oxfam’s West Africa regional deputy director Raphael Sindaye said.
“One of the main reasons why local rice doesn’t sell well is that it is regarded poorly: Eating it means you do not have the right social status,” he said.
“Before the quality left something to be desired, but the farmers in the north have really worked to improve it and part of the production is even made into broken rice, like the Senegalese households like” for traditional rice with sauce dishes.
“What remains is the battle to commercialize it,” Sindaye said. “Of the 5,000 tonnes produced by farmers we are tracking in the north, 2,400 tonnes remain unsold.”
The pro-government daily Le Soleil reported that the minister for food security wanted to set up special village stores to sell Senegalese rice exclusively.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS