₦airaland Forum

nairalanda1:
You are essentially arguing that farmers in nigeria should lose money and suffer financially , or failing that, should be driven out of work so that you can have cheap food.

You also are essentially supporting wasting more forex...or sending our forex...to foreigners instead of trying to keep it at home

A better idea would be finding ways to reduce production costs of rice here in nigeria...or just grinning and bearing it....or making sure we have an industrial economy, which would spur investment in increased production of rice here.

Listen to ur self, as if u don't know the country that you are in.

Nigerians are greedy, even if all these things are in place, Nigerians will still exploit each other as far as they are the only source of a particular product

Beautifulday:
Then something is wrong with Nigeria system of production.

The imported rice are bought. At what price that the local counterparts can't compete favourably?

The imported rice are transported from host nation. Initiate logistics cost isn't available in Nigerian rice production.

The imported rice incurs clearing cost which Nigerian rice do not suffer.

The imported rice has more processing value than local rice. Processing cost

The big question.

How is imported rice cheaper than local rice

Local man is confused

Local man’s eyes now are clearer.

Remember that Buhari shut the borders to enable local industries thrive? What happened thereafter? Farmers took undue advantage and began a price race against imported rice. They ensured that the prices of their locally produced rice became higher than imported rice, while lamenting of lack of incentives, grains, etc. They were all very deceptive and now with the borders opened again, they worked against themselves.

Nigerian produced rice variants much richer and nutritious then the imported variants. They get grains at cheap prices, yet they tell us that production costs make it more expensive than the imported ones. One wonders how. But if it is so, why don’t we continue with the imported variants?

The greed of the farmers will never let Nigerians have rice at decent prices. Buhari have them waivers, loans and grants, yet the greedy Nigerian farmers kept increasing the price of Nigerian rice.

Diamonddris:
Listen to ur self, as if u don't know the country that you are in.

Nigerians are greedy, even if all these things are in place, Nigerians will still exploit each other as far as they are the only source of a particular product

It's because you don't own a business or run a business that you are speaking like that. (note that I did not say that exploitation doesn't happen...but it is not as widespread as you think).

A lot goes into producing rice in this country, compounded by the fact that the climate in the major rice growing areas doesn't favor them, and by the fact that transport and other costs have gone up in this tinubu economy.

What you are indirectly suggesting is government price controls on domestically produced rice. Countries that have tried that have always ended up with scarcity of food and any other product government puts price controls on, because no human being likes to do work for free or for poor wages, so that others can enjoy 'cheap food'.

And it usually backfires on the economy.

You better learn that things cost money, plus you don't effing have to eat rice every day.

Themanleshey:
Excuse, excuse and more excuses just to cut people neck, tor we support importation when it comes to rice so you don’t have to go through all those stress.

Close your mill and find other business you can do that won’t give you all those troubles. Shikena 🤷‍♂️

Don't mind him .
Anyone that can't compete globally should close down.

Nigerians and greed.

Buhari gave full support to rice mills. I remember the CBN Anchor borrowers scheme pouring out funds to set up these rice mills.

How did Nigerians get repaid? Higher prices with not that great quality. The only reason government re-enabled importation is due to inflated prices, and artificial scarcity along the chain.

This is not to wholly blame the farmers as most of them are low scale. But till we have multiple fully integrated companies that do farming to milling / processing and bring the finished product to market, it’ll be difficult to not allow imports. Even the rice mills were buying rice paddies at ridiculous prices thus we pushing farmers out of business.

nairalanda1:
Well, if your country can produce rice during the dry season in nigeria, when most farmers cannot produce rice, you would outproduce the average Nigerian farmer

Or in plain english, NIgerian rice famers can produce rice within a limited period (March-September). Your average Thai farmer can produce rice all year round. Also, a nigerian farmer has to rely on irrigation...which increases cost. Your average thai farmer doesn't need irrigation

Finally, Thailand and Brazil has large areas of marshland. Nigeria? We don't have quite enough marshland.

Also, most farming in NIgeria is smallholder. Brazil has large scale farming, as do the thais. That boosts production even more.



You really should not be telling lies, old man.

They should leverage irrigation. There are 2 billion people in China and they are not importing rice and the price is not even higher in neighboring countries that will necessitate smuggling. We should stop supporting mediocrity.
We don't need 90 useless rice farmers. Only 5 serious people are enough to feed the whole country even if they farm only in the rainy season.

DeOTR:
They should leverage irrigation. There are 2 billion people in China and they are not importing rice and the price is not even higher in neighboring countries that will necessitate smuggling. We should stop supporting mediocrity.
We don't need 90 useless rice farmers. Only 5 serious people are enough to feed the whole country even if they farm only in the rainy season.

90 mills , not farmers.

Also, more research into drought resistant rice.

AMINDA:
Relax, Tinubu is Finishing Nigerians (RTIFN). How would we get rice to distribute to Nigerians if we do not import?

School is not always a scam. I forgot, hatred is your first nature and even education can't change that. Let me educate you a bit. I'm not even a Tinubu supporter and I know your moniker is synonyms with hate.

In economics, there's something called comparative advantage. It means things that are cheaper to be produced locally compared to being imported should be produced locally and vice versa. It's not about emotions, it's basic economics.

If it wasn't for theor greed, there would have been no reason to reopen the border at first.

We embraced local production to create suplus, but our farmers saw it as an opportunity to cash out on people's suffering.

Selling at excessive often exorbitant prices that they dared not sell before

otokzmail:
Greedy Nigerian farmers are crying........ Too much of them.
They are so desperate to make huge money from the suffering masses by milking them dry.
The next greedy people to be dealt with should be the Nigerian landlords.
I hope Tinubu would help to import more houses from Cotonou if possible.

IndexMode:
The problem is who will farm rice paddy for them.

Especially at a cost that will allow them to mill and make great profit. The farmers want 50k for 3 months of work. By the time they process (fast duration - capital intensive operation) they can make average profit of 10k. But they are not satisfied with that business model.

Miller's began pushing for importation of paddy from India. But the government choose to grant to only Imota mill, BUA and like 3 others. Only friends of government.
The others have to source paddy locally to engage local producers. They are not satisfied.

But that's the same blueprint in Sugar also. Dangote is planting only about 20k hectares of sugarcane in Adamawa. All the rest is imported as sugar syrup from Brazil and just processed here. That why nobody else can thrive in sugar unless you can farm sugarcane too. You can't import syrup. Basita fell off because farmers stopped planting for it.
3 years of profit & u will be smiling. 1 year of loss, maybe due to red rot disease. and you might never recover. Insurance no dey for farmers here.

Back to rice. It was never about building mills but empowering farmers and settling for a long term ROI business model before you eventually recoup your capital.
But the average businessman joined the bandwagon of milling when a policy shift favored it. Hopes to buy paddy cheap from poor farmers and process to sell for 3x markup price.

I still admire their bravery to invest in Nigeria. But we consumers need them to lead a more patriotic business model.
Only backward integration can truly help local rice.

Bacita didn't fall because of farmers. Corrupt individuals ran the factory down. I think dangote bought it.

nairalanda1:
Here is a figure for you

Cost of producing one kilo of Nigerian rice : 850-1300 naira per kg.

Cost of producing one kilo of Thailand rice : N200-380 per kg.

See the problem?

I think the farmers should go into another business with competitive advantage or find a way to reduce cost of production. It's not like high labor cost is the reason for this. Economies of scale demands that you produce large quantities to reduce cost. Fully mechanized farming will help them compete. They should use the billions buhari gave them for that.

MONEY247:
Deisel.... Deisel..
Plants and manufacturers equipment run on Deisel and the cost effect reflects on production price of the product....

Simple explanation..

Until Nigeria solve its industry problems...
Importation is the best way to go

This particular problem has nothing to do with diesel,just greed

DeOTR:
I think the farmers should go into another business with competitive advantage or find a way to reduce cost of production. It's not like high labor cost is the reason for this. Economies of scale demands that you produce large quantities to reduce cost. Fully mechanized farming will help them compete. They should use the billions buhari gave them for that.

Yep, that's the problem. Nigeria can't do large scale production of rice, because of low mechanzation and climate, among other things.

Stone rice wey dey expensive joined.

Elusive001:
“Out of more than 150 rice mills nationwide, nearly 90 have shut down operations. The remaining mills are currently operating between 30 and 70 per cent of their installed capacity.”


Where are the rice now is cheap crew? Oya food done land oooo

Elerib.u the question you should be asking is: why is imported rice cheaper than local rice? Considering clearing processing cost and clearing cost. Even smuggled local rice; you have to settle custom officers, pay drivers etc yet it's still cheaper than locally produced ones.

ijayalolo:
The same local mills and farmers that were pampered for years and instead of rice prices to have started coming down after a couple of years, the greedy lot kept increasing it year in year out.

Don't worry, the master strategist will come close boarder against imports again so they can continue making their arbitrary profit and you people can start another round of complain that "how much did he meet rice, how much is it now?"



Thank you for your attention to this matter

You pampered who? The farmers? How?

Farmers pay islamic terrorists before planting on their farms. They pay islamic terrorists before they harvest. They are even levied again by these terrorists. The fulani herdsmen graze cattle on the same farms. The farmers still have to buy other goods and services that Tinubu’s maladministration led to their skyrocketed prices.

Continue to blame the masses and not the government.

akpumping7720:
Elerib.u the question you should be asking is: why is imported rice cheaper than local rice? Considering clearing processing cost and clearing cost. Even smuggled local rice; you have to settle custom officers, pay drivers etc yet it's still cheaper than locally produced ones.

Simple. Thailand and Brazil, which supply most of our improted rice, can out produce Nigerian famrers, most of whom are small holder farmers, and who have to rely on irrigation to keep producing (unlike the thais and brazillians who have large scale rice farms, and year round rainfall, and large marshy areas...larger than some states in Nigeria.).

I mean look at Brazil. Mostof the country is rainforest, and has high rainfall...which favors all year round rice growing..plus it's home to the AMazon river basin, which has a lot of water and marshland. Suitable for year round rice growing.

Nigeria? Most of our rice is grown in the North, farmersprefer to grow corn and millet over rice, lack of mechanzation, and a long dry season that makes cost of producing rice higher.

nairalanda1:
Simple. Thailand and Brazil, which supply most of our improted rice, can out produce Nigerian famrers, most of whom are small holder farmers, and who have to rely on irrigation to keep producing (unlike the thais and brazillians who have large scale rice farms, and year round rainfall, and large marshy areas...larger than some states in Nigeria.).

I mean look at Brazil. Mostof the country is rainforest, and has high rainfall...which favors all year round rice growing..plus it's home to the AMazon river basin, which has a lot of water and marshland. Suitable for year round rice growing.

Nigeria? Most of our rice is grown in the North, farmersprefer to grow corn and millet over rice, lack of mechanzation, and a long dry season that makes cost of producing rice higher.

So what happened to the loans and waivers Buhari gave to rice producers? He had to even close the borders for them. Strict measures were put in place.

The supermarket where I worked last as the inventory manager, we dare not say we have foreign rice in stock for fear of being sanctioned. Yet they all enjoined these measure but couldn't mechanised their production to large scale in order to reduce cost. Apologies for my first word . Cause I actually used that derogatory words for calling Jagaban supporters agbadorians

no

akpumping7720:
So what happened to the loans and waivers Buhari gave to rice producers? He had to even close the borders for them. Strict measures were put in place.

The supermarket where I worked last as the inventory manager, we dare not say we have foreign rice in stock for fear of being sanctioned. Yet they all enjoined these measure but couldn't mechanised their production to large scale in order to reduce cost. Apologies for my first word . Cause I actually used that derogatory words for calling Jagaban supporters agbadorians

it's more than mechanisation, as you can see.

Also most rice farmers are smallholders. They would need to.pirchase a lot of land, a lot of machinery and have a decent water source as well as energy source to be able to scale up rice production.

That means a very large loan. Banks in Nigeria infamously don't loan money to farmers

Elusive001:
You pampered who? The farmers? How?

Farmers pay islamic terrorists before planting on their farms. They pay islamic terrorists before they harvest. They are even levied again by these terrorists. The fulani herdsmen graze cattle on the same farms. The farmers still have to buy other goods and services that Tinubu’s maladministration led to their skyrocketed prices.

Continue to blame the masses and not the government.

The government failed in its duties of providing security across the country which affect the farmers and every other sector of the economy

That being said, rice farming is a private business that is being exposed to the poor government effort on security the same way a commercial driver, teacher in school, office worker can be kidnapped for ransom by terrorists. and those others did not get the economic shield the rice farmers got over the years.

And if shielding the rice mills from importation is not helping the masses (which was the reason for the import ban) then let's go back to our importation, let rice be affordable and if the mills still cannot compete let them look for other things to do like any other private entity.

If not, it will just be same as the madness of NNPC and our refineries.


Thank you for your attention to this matter

Selfish idio*ts! So we should continue to buy your overestimated rice just to grow your business while Nigerians continue to groan in pains and hunger

Beautifulday:
Then something is wrong with Nigeria system of production.

The imported rice are bought. At what price that the local counterparts can't compete favourably?

Imported rice are always cheaper....
Cos of high domestic production costs of local rice...
Most foreign govt also provide subsidies for their farmers...
Subsidy lowers the export price which is cheaper than local rice price...

say something useful

Elusive001:
“Out of more than 150 rice mills nationwide, nearly 90 have shut down operations. The remaining mills are currently operating between 30 and 70 per cent of their installed capacity.”


Where are the rice now is cheap crew? Oya food done land oooo

Iolo:
Nigerians and greed.

Buhari gave full support to rice mills. I remember the CBN Anchor borrowers scheme pouring out funds to set up these rice mills.

How did Nigerians get repaid? Higher prices with not that great quality. The only reason government re-enabled importation is due to inflated prices, and artificial scarcity along the chain.

This is not to wholly blame the farmers as most of them are low scale. But till we have multiple fully integrated companies that do farming to milling / processing and bring the finished product to market, it’ll be difficult to not allow imports. Even the rice mills were buying rice paddies at ridiculous prices thus we pushing farmers out of business.

Comrade the truth of the matter is that they made a monumental mess of the whole thing

This is nothing but the truth.

Nigeria needs to be self sufficient let Nigeria first of all secure her borders by building a strong immigration offices building strong border defense systems and becoming self sufficient by closing her borders and appreciating made in Nigeria goods just like the ones from aba and different parts of the country this slavery mentality and low self esteem must stop Nigerians should be able to produce what they eat wear and import less and if they do that the govt and I assure you within 20 years from now poverty will be no more in the system and in the country and our govt should stop closing down business they should first provide 24 hours light because any nation that wants to go forward must have 24 hours light and better off getting the power from clean energy like the Sun the way Morocco did it, Morocco is the only African country supplying light to other European countries like France Spain Portugal with sunlight turning desertification into prosperity our govt stop the looting and learn and stop been foolish.

The rice farmers should not even say anything. Former president Buhari did everything possible to make sure they're okay by placing an embargo on rice importation.

He actually wanted us to produce what we eat. But trust my greedy Nigerian farmers now. A bag of rice we were buying for N8,500 quickly moved to N30,000 during his first term and climbed to about N80,000 before the end of his second tenure.

Would we say that Buhari did a bad thing by trying to upgrade the farmers and also encouraging Nigerians to patronize the local farmers?

They caused the president to bring back the importation of rice because the farmers held all of us by the jugular just because the former president tried to encourage them.

nairalanda1:
Here is a figure for you

Cost of producing one kilo of Nigerian rice : 850-1300 naira per kg.

Cost of producing one kilo of Thailand rice : N200-380 per kg.

See the problem?

it is not by force to produce rice,if we can’t produce it at reasonable cost,we will import.

Beautifulday:
Then something is wrong with Nigeria system of production.

The imported rice are bought. At what price that the local counterparts can't compete favourably?

The imported rice are transported from host nation. Initiate logistics cost isn't available in Nigerian rice production.

The imported rice incurs clearing cost which Nigerian rice do not suffer.

The imported rice has more processing value than local rice. Processing cost

The big question.

How is imported rice cheaper than local rice

Local man is confused

That is where a responsible leadership comes in. I'm a farmer and I can tell you with every measure of certainty that the price difference entirely based on yield advantage..
In major rice producing countries across the world, farming isn't a blind practice of scattering grains and prayerfully waiting for a harvest. It is real science! Paddy fields are properly leveled to precision to guarantee water distribution, land preparation is excellent for achieve the fine silt necessary to eliminate poor germination and guarantee reccomend plant population per area, seeds are carefully produced to eliminate undesirable genetic traits, nutrient supplementation is data driven and not reckless, irrigation is available to support natural rain feeding in drought spells, harvest operations are timely and silos are accessible to minimize post-harvest losses, security is priority without farmer-herder hostilities. The average per hectare yield across Nigeria hovers around 2tons while an upwards of 8tons is normal in many parts of the Asian rice bowl ecology.

Rather than invest in land development, irrigation, input subsidies, government storage and buyback/ end consumer subsidy, and tackling insecurity, the government of the day chose the seemingly easier but unsustainable option of importation. It all screams politics and never people or policy driven leadership!

Lanretoye:
it is not by force to produce rice,if we can’t produce it at reasonable cost,we will import.

Okay, don't complain about loss of jobs and lack of jobs then, just hail tinubu and move on...

yemre:
The rice farmers should not even say anything. Former president Buhari did everything possible to make sure they're okay by placing an embargo on rice importation.

He actually wanted us to produce what we eat. But trust my greedy Nigerian farmers now. A bag of rice we were buying for N8,500 quickly moved to N30,000 during his first term and climbed to about N80,000 before the end of his second tenure.

Would we say that Buhari did a bad thing by trying to upgrade the farmers and also encouraging Nigerians to patronize the local farmers?

They caused the president to bring back the importation of rice because the farmers held all of us by the jugular just because the former president tried to encourage them.

That's an extremely reckless and uninformed assertion to make. The Buhari administration rolled out different schemes aimed at achieving local sufficiency but the question is "How much of it got to the farmers?" The funds were looted by the same people who were charged with the responsibility of dispensing it. Farms inputs that were to be distributed to farmers had "NOT FOR SALE " boldly written on the bags ended being sold by the very same people.
They rich commodity traders mopped up every grain in the market at harvest to store and sell later for bigger margins even at the expense of farmers who were struggling to pay off debts incurred during the farming season.