Nigerian Rice: ‘It’s Difficult To Meet Demand Now’ -Manufacturers

Federal government’s decision to shut down all land borders has attracted criticism from many Nigerians, including businessmen and women.

But manufacturers of local rice see the development as yielding positive results for the industry.

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Abadini Rice, one of the rising local rice companies in Nigeria, is already lamenting inability to meet market demands.

Zainab Tsav, Business Development Manager of the company who spoke in an interview with The Whistler said the closure of the land borders has pushed demand for local rice to a new level.

She stated that her company struggled to meet market demand at the initial stage of the closure of Nigerian land borders.

“Since the closure of the boarders the company has been flooded with excess demand and we found it difficult initially to meet up. But we put in effort to meet the high-level demand,” she stated.

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Tsav revealed that sales volume was low before the border closure, adding that weekly sales to distributors nationwide was about 1000 bags and a 50kg bag sold for N15,500.

According to her, half of this amount was sold in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

However, since the closure of the borders weekly sales had jumped to over 3000 bags while price had risen to N17,000 per bag.

Tsav said the company was able to meet up with increased demand by acquiring more milling and processing machines and added to the work force to boost production.

She said the company increased the price of its product by only N1,500 to make the brand affordable to most Nigerians.

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“There is a slight increase in the price so that it will still be affordable. We sold to them at N15,500 before the closure of the borders and now we sell at N17,000.”

Tsav appealed to the government to address the issue of farmers who hoard rice paddy stating that their actions have also contributed to increase in price.

She alleged that the hoarders have made processing difficult and expensive.

She also commended the federal government for supporting agriculture through different funding schemes and urged the government to introduce more schemes and make fund more accessible.

She said it is the only way Nigeria could become self-sufficient in the manufacture of local rice by 2020.

‘Since the government is prioritizing agriculture, it needs to increase its intervention scheme by providing more funds and easing access to the funds, that way by 2020 local rice would flood the market at cheap rate and improved quality.”

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Tsav also revealed that Abadini was yet to receive intervention fund from any of the government schemes, stating that the company had applied for the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria but yet to receive funds.

Several local rice manufacturers, including Lion Rice, have expressed similar sentiments about the effect of the border closure on their product.

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