Hamisu Haruna and his men are bent over, turning the earth under a relentless sun. The work is hard in this impoverished part of northern Nigeria, but the harvest will be good.
“In the last two years my yield has jumped to 35 bags of rice against the 20 I was getting in previous years,” said Haruna, who is in his 40s with craggy features and a wooden hoe over his shoulder.
“Rice farming has greatly improved. I have had better yield and better price in the market,” he told reporters at his farm at Dawakin Tofa, on the outskirts of Kano.
Rising rice production is one of the few positives amid a recession, which is the west African nation’s worst in 25 years.
About 5.7 million tonnes of rice being are produced every year — three times as much as a decade ago.
“We are now living a white-gold revolution,” AfricaRice research center Nigeria director Francis Nwilene said. “People understand that oil is not something Nigeria can depend on anymore.”
The potential is undeniable.
However, despite having vast tracts of fertile land, Nigeria — the largest consumer of rice in Africa — is also one of the world’s biggest importers of the food staple.
In the Kano region, the GreenPro factory shifted from specializing in flour and poultry to white cereals four years ago.
“Rice processing is by far more profitable than flour and chicken feed,” production manager Salisu Saleh said. “Rice is a major food staple in our society which only few can live without.”
In a sign of rice’s paramount role in Nigerian society, a “Jollof price index” — named after a popular savory fried rice dish — was launched by an advisory firm in June to measure food inflation.
With domestic demand approaching 7.8 million tonnes per year, almost a quarter of Nigeria’s rice comes from abroad, mainly India and Thailand. It is shipped through the Lagos Port or by road from Benin, which shares nearly 800km of porous borders.
“Smuggling is a major issue which discourages local production,” Nwilene said.
The government has said it believes Nigeria can be self-sufficient in rice production within a couple of years and is trying to plug gaps from cheaper imports.
Small-scale farmers, who make up the majority of the rice producers, face numerous challenges, not least access to land.
Production facilities are also inefficient and costs high, while there are not enough ways for farmers to commercialize their products.
With fertilizers and machinery, Haruna said that he could farm “four times the current field.”
“I have a large farm, but I can only cultivate a fraction because of my limited resources,” he said.
To boost local production, Abuja banned rice imports by land in 2015 and launched an aid program overseen by the central bank targeting about 600,000 farmers.
In the arid north, new irrigation systems that allow farmers to harvest twice a year instead of just once during the rainy season have been introduced.
Nigeria’s economic crisis has provided a boost for rice.
As global oil prices hover at about US$50 a barrel, the nation needs to reduce costly imports and boost exports to increase government revenue.
Faced with a severe shortage of foreign currency, Abuja has severely restricted access to US dollars — necessary to pay for imports — and has repeatedly talked up the merits of local agriculture, which accounts for 24 percent of GDP.
The rush for “white gold” is now attracting some of the country’s biggest names in agribusiness.
Singaporean giant Olam, which already owns one of the nation’s largest rice farms in Nasawara State, is running at full capacity, processing 105,000 tonnes of rice a year.
“Demand is high. Rice is a real business opportunity for Nigerians and will create thousands of jobs,” Olam executive Ade Adefeko said.
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