The price of foreign rice may fall ahead of this yuletide as the federal government wants to review downward the 110 percent import duty and levy it slammed on the commodity January this year to boost local production.
Currently, the market price for full bag of rice goes for N9, 500 and N4, 800 half bag depending on the brand.

Chairman, Presidential Committee on Trade Malpractices, Alhaji Dahiru Ado-Kurawa, who gave the hint while fielding questions from journalists in Lagos said the decision by government to review the tariff downward was because the policy has escalated smuggling of the commodity and loss of revenue to the government to the tune of N2 billion in the past eleven months.
“Benin Republic is one of the highest importers of parboiled rice this year. This is the country that ordinarily imports about 230,000 tons per annum. The two million tons parboiled rice imported from Benin was all smuggled to Nigeria,’’ said Ado-Kurawa.
According to him, the stakeholders met recently in Abuja and part of the resolution was to advice the federal government to review the rice policy and sift out the grey areas where improvements could be made with a view to ensuring that the government’s quest to halt rice import was achieved.
According to him, the review is not a policy somersault but an approach to create a healthy mechanism for Nigeria to be self sufficient in rice production and earn income from imported rice
The chairman disclosed that the government would also give incentive to to rice millers into backward integration
According to him, government’s policy on rice has greatly deepened local production, which was geared towards attaining self-sufficiency in the product.
He noted that local milling capacity has increased to 200 percent and there has been an increment in production of about four million tons of local rice, thereby driving the production of paddy rice to an all-time high.
President, Millers, Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria, Mr. Tunji Owoeye, commended the federal government for looking into the challenges facing the rice sub-sector.
He listed the challenges as smuggling of foreign rice brands through the Benin Republic border as well as incentives to rice farmers and processors.

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/11/price-foreign-rice-may-crash-fg-plans-tariff-cut/

Now my take!!! this is not good for agriculture in Nigeria, at a times all concerted effort is been geared towards increase local production then this, meanwhile you can join the agriculture community on www. where you can interact with farmers and other agriculture professionals across the world and also downoad weekly prices of agric commodity/foodstuff from market in Lagos.

FG definately drinking ogogoro.

They wang to reduce tarrif on a good that we produce and flood the market with foreign rice yet they want to increase tarrif on cars that we do not produce.

Goodluck is surrounded by very bad economic advisers.

I don't know whether to cry or laugh, this is double edged sword. We have been enduring d increaments since january, december he want to crash the price. What is the essence of the price increament in d first instance?

Highly commendable. Rice has become a very expensive commodity and the price should be reduced drastically.

The same thing will happen in the car import tariff. People will resort to smuggling and all the revenue will shift to benin republic as usual.

Any reduction in tariff will not affect the price of rice till at least April next year. This is not about any yuletide or anything of that sort.
The policy just isn't working period. It's working for the Republic of Benin though.

Very wrong step. Govt must not be seen to be going back and forth like a yoyo. There must be consistency. No amount of blackmail and smuggling should force govt to reverse the rice self-sufficiency policy. If there is smuggling, then govt should fix it. I doubt if the agric minister or minister of finance will support this move. If the price of foreign rice is expensive, people should go local. That is the essence of the policy, isn't it? Wrong step, if the report is true.

Sincere 9gerian: Very wrong step. Govt must not be seen to be going back and forth like a yoyo. There must be consistency. No amount of blackmail and smuggling should force govt to reverse the rice self-sufficiency policy. If there is smuggling, then govt should fix it. I doubt if the agric minister or minister of finance will support this move. If the price of foreign rice is expensive, people should go local. That is the essence of the policy, isn't it? Wrong step, if the report is true.

Well said, but the cause of this forward and backward policy is poor planning. FG should have given a 5yrs plan whr they encourage millers and farmers of paddy rice by creating a market for them. Then gradually increase tarriff of imported rice. Once the standard are almost same people will ordinarily buy local rice because of price difference.

I really don't knw who is advising GEJ, the automotive policy is also dead on arrival.

Sincere 9gerian: Very wrong step. Govt must not be seen to be going back and forth like a yoyo. There must be consistency. No amount of blackmail and smuggling should force govt to reverse the rice self-sufficiency policy. If there is smuggling, then govt should fix it. I doubt if the agric minister or minister of finance will support this move. If the price of foreign rice is expensive, people should go local. That is the essence of the policy, isn't it? Wrong step, if the report is true.

People are buying local, my friend. And in most cases they even prefer local. But it isn't enough to feed 160 million people.
Can't the government be more imaginative than just slamming high tariffs on everything?
Can't they be more serious about boosting local production by making available to farmers everything they need?
Tariffs cannot be all and all. That is why the same policy on cars will fail.

Dblack:

Well said, but the cause of this forward and backward policy is poor planning. FG should have given a 5yrs plan whr they encourage millers and farmers of paddy rice by creating a market for them. Then gradually increase tarriff of imported rice. Once the standard are almost same people will ordinarily buy local rice because of price difference.

I really don't knw who is advising GEJ, the automotive policy is also dead on arrival.

I doubt if there is any way you can introduce such policies without having hiccups and shocks or challenges. There is already high quality locally milled rice in the market and its cheaper too. The propaganda and outcry against the policy is being orchestrated by rice importing cabals. Govt should not allow them to succeed. The Nigeria Customs should brace up and face the challenges of smuggling.

As for the automative policy, I think it is good to go. There is always Innoson and other locally made brands for Nigerians to fall back upon. But the policy should be accompanied by car loan policy.

We cannot complain of lack of jobs and at the same attack and KILL every policy targeted at unleashing jobs in the system. The unemployed and the very poor in the society do not buy cars, neither do they import foreign rice. What the poor and unemployed need is jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Sincere 9gerian:
I doubt if there is any way you can introduce such policies without having hiccups and shocks or challenges. There is already high quality locally milled rice in the market and its cheaper too. The propaganda and outcry against the policy is being orchestrated by rice importing cabals. Govt should not allow them to succeed. The Nigeria Customs should brace up and face the challenges of smuggling.

As for the automative policy, I think it is good to go. There is always Innoson and other locally made brands for Nigerians to fall back upon. But the policy should be accompanied by car loan policy.

We cannot complain of lack of jobs and at the same attack and KILL every policy targeted at unleashing jobs in the system. The unemployed and the very poor in the society do not buy cars, neither do they import foreign rice. What the poor and unemployed need is jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Any job creation policy without stable power supply and good transportation system is a ruse. A big lie.
Not many industrialists can afford to build their own power plants like Dangote.
And the Nigerian customs is doing far more damage than the so called cabals. In fact you can even call them the cabal.

Sincere 9gerian:
I doubt if there is any way you can introduce such policies without having hiccups and shocks or challenges. There is already high quality locally milled rice in the market and its cheaper too. The propaganda and outcry against the policy is being orchestrated by rice importing cabals. Govt should not allow them to succeed. The Nigeria Customs should brace up and face the challenges of smuggling.

As for the automative policy, I think it is good to go. There is always Innoson and other locally made brands for Nigerians to fall back upon. But the policy should be accompanied by car loan policy.

We cannot complain of lack of jobs and at the same attack and KILL every policy targeted at unleashing jobs in the system. The unemployed and the very poor in the society do not buy cars, neither do they import foreign rice. What the poor and unemployed need is jobs, jobs and more jobs.

locally milled rice is cheaper?definitely not in nigeria.

There always seems to be a "cabal" behind everything.I'd suggest you advise your boss to do his job and appoint good advisers than falling back to the "cabal" excuse everytime.

Anyone that thinks the auto policy makes sense needs to be examined.let's go by your analogy that innoson cars are available,how many units does innoson produce per year?how durable are innoson cars?what's the cost of innoson cars?and when you say innoson and OTHERS,where exactly are there other car manufacturers?will innoson also produce trucks?what happened to setting a 5year timeline to encourage local production?why couldn't automakers like toyota,nissan,tata or even kia be invited to set up factories?give them tax breaks for a few years and then you can boost local production while also creating jobs.I am inclined to conclude the president is been advised by morons

Aigbofa:

People are buying local, my friend. And in most cases they even prefer local. But it isn't enough to feed 160 million people.
Can't the government be more imaginative than just slamming high tariffs on everything?
Can't they be more serious about boosting local production by making available to farmers everything they need?
Tariffs cannot be all and all. That is why the same policy on cars will fail.

True that. I love local. Folks around me do. And you need to see how the availability of the Ofada and Matse delicacy is picking up in Woolwich.
But the supply is never consistent. Folks above 40 prefer local because of the high fibre less sugar content. Its availability is always the issue. Flood the markets with local and watch importation of the foreign die.

owk

www.nairaland.com/1533496/funny-facts-tasued-students

GEJ all the way. But a bag of rice cost 12,500. E ma paro mor.

otokx: They wang to reduce tarrif on a good that we produce and flood the market with foreign rice yet they want to increase tarrif on cars that we do not produce.

Goodluck is surrounded by very bad economic advisers.

Warn yasef, You just talk wetin dey my mind.....

Tarrif cut on rice, Tarrif increase on Cars...
Rice is grown all over Nigeria, Cars are only assembled (not manufactured) in Nigeria.

I reserve my comments

i even prefer local rice sef, i hear dese imported rice ar very bad to health

freezy:

True that. I love local. Folks around me do. And you need to see how the availability of the Ofada and Matse delicacy is picking up in Woolwich.
But the supply is never consistent. Folks above 40 prefer local because of the high fibre less sugar content. Its availability is always the issue. Flood the markets with local and watch importation of the foreign die.

The demand is high yet, nobody wanna farm to grow them

Thank God

Mama nkechi rice will increase, finally. But I don't understand dat woman and her food oh. 150 naira rice with plantain, spag n beans is almost d same with 100 naira own.
I think its time I changed burka/mama put. Who get suggestion?

Reduce the tariff on imported cars not the one on rice. We are used to buying rice at 8k per bag, but to think that price of tokumbo cars will sky rocket by over 70% is absurd

otokx: They wang to reduce tarrif on a good that we produce and flood the market with foreign rice yet they want to increase tarrif on cars that we do not produce.

Goodluck is surrounded by very bad economic advisers.

Omo!! The thing shock me like Generator o! Because Light no dey my area.


And the licence to import Rice still lies in the hands of a few importers namely; Dangote & Chagouri Chagouri a.k.a Stallion.

Nigerians. Even when the govt bring up policies that would boost the economy, they would still look for every possible means to frustrate govt's effort in a bid to achieve their get-rich-quick schemes. After, they would be the same set of people condemning the govt of being insensitive to the plights of its citizens. i ve always said this; before Nigeria can have a good leader, the people themselves MUST change for good!

They better so that common man on the street will see food to eat.
Rice being one major staple food in Nigeria should
not be beyond the reach of an average Nigerian.

*runs to market* madam how much b ur cup of garri,.

The reason advanced for the proposed plan to deflate the price of foreign rice, to me,is parochial, uneconomical and coming too late as major importers of the product have long ago imported ahead of the yuletide season.

I JUST WISH GRAIN DEALERS IN THE SOUTH-SOUTH MARKETS & SOUTH-EAST MARKETS WILL AGREE TO COMPLY WITH THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT; WITHOUT ALOWING THERE GREEDY NATURE TO AFFECT POOR NIGERIANS.

Why do we have ofada rice?