One of the major problems confronting rice farmers and processors in the country is smuggling, particularly along Nigeria’s land borders from Benin Republic up to Niger Republic.

 

According to the Border Communities Development Agency, Nigeria shares international land borders with Benin Republic covering 773 Km, Niger Republic 1,497Km, Chad Republic 87 km and the Republic of Cameroon 1690 km.  This stretches over a total land distance of approximately 3,053 km from the Gulf of Guinea to Lake Chad, Borno to Sokoto and Sokoto to Lagos.

These thousands of square killometres of land is used as a conduit pipe for bringing into the country foreign goods or products that weakens the nation’s agro economy.

 

As part of measures to boost the already dampened morale of Nigerian farmers and processors, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, recently announced drastic measure-to shut down the land boarders in order to stamp out smuggling activities.

 

Chief Ogbeh while speaking on the subject a few days ago, said the country’s neighbours were killing the nation’s economy through their ports.

 

 “As we speak, a neighbour of ours is importing more rice than China is importing. They don’t eat parboiled rice, they eat white rice. They use their ports to try and damage our economy. I’m telling you now in the next few days you are going to hear that the border has been shut, we are going to shut it to protect you and protect us. You will start seeing all sorts of negative things on the internet,” the minister said.

 

Besides the economic war the neighbours are waging against Nigerian farmers, Chief Ogbeh also stated one other reason why the borders have to be closed.

 

“Let me tell you why we need to shut the borders, I grow rice, I was the first Nigerian to mill rice free of stones, if you plant rice in certain parcels of land, some poisonous materials gets into the rice. There are three kinds of water in their natural state; there is fresh water from the river, salt water from the sea, blackish water. If you go to the Delta in many countries, in South East Asia where they grow rice, if you plant rice in the same place like four to six years continuously, the quantum of acid begins to increase and acid causes cancer and that is what they are dumping on us,” he said.

 

 Ogbeh told Nigerians that the country had reduced rice import by 95 percent and increased the number of rice farmers from five to 13 million within the last two years.

 

 However, this is not the first time the federal government is banning rice import through land borders, it had done so two years ago, yet  rice kept coming in while the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) and Rice Millers Association continue to visit the minister and customs, begging for action.

 

Daily Trust reached out to some stakeholders to share their thoughts on the piece of news that may change their lives:

 

Abdullahi Idris Zuru  is the General Manager, Labana Rice Mill Ltd in Birni Kebbi, Kebbi State. He told our reporter that the action was overdue, stressing, “You see in a country like this where we have land to cultivate, plant rice and we have farmers that are willing to produce this rice so that we have food self-sufficiency but sadly, the farmers produce, the processors processed, and now the processors are left with the rice in their warehouses.

 

“Like this year, I am telling you- you can check all over, not more than 50% of the farmers that did dry season farming went back to it this year. Now as a processor, you buy the rice, process it but you cannot sell. So how can you go back to the market and buy paddy rice? Even if the processors will buy, they will do so at lower prices.”

 

He said many processors in the country still have processed rice in their warehouses, unable to sell.

 

“What I’m saying in essence is this, now, we have about 12 exiting integrated rice mills in Nigeria and about 15 or more are coming up,  some like Labana Rice Mill is expanding from 16 tonnes per house to 36 tonnes per hour. These are investments of people that are willing to support the government to produce enough rice for Nigerians,” he said.

 

 He stressed that though rice import has been officially banned, what  smugglers are bringing in despite the ban is even more than what they were bringing in before the ban.

 

“Don’t forget, this rice they are bringing, most of them have expired. So by the time you continue to allow them to bring in the rice, you are importing poverty into the country and exporting wealth to other countries because their farmers and processors are busy working, providing employment opportunities for their people whereas here in Nigeria, you are discouraging farmers, discouraging processors from establishing new plants and consider the number of people that are employed by Rice millers believe that before taking this decision government was fully aware of the various ways smugglers bring rice to the country-through motorcycles, trailers, pickups, and even donkeys, in large quantities.

 

Alhaji Aminu Goronyo, the National President of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), said the closure of land borders is a good thing not only to rice farmers but to all Nigerians.

 

“One, it will help us to stop eating diseases or cancer in the name of foreign rice that we import into the country. Two, the huge money that is been taken out of this country to these small countries that generate employments for them will be stopped. Also, the economy of the country will receive a boost because this huge money being taken out of the country unnecessarily will be kept in Nigeria for Nigerians to utilize and get employed,” he said.

 

He said rice farmers throughout the country fully back the action of government as it would boost productivity.

 

 “Is a welcome development, we support it, we are solidly behind it and we hope and pray that in the next few days, the economy of the country will completely change because the  huge money is no more allowed to be taken to either India,  Thailand or wherever in the name of importing foreign rice,” Goronyo said.

 

“Farmers believe that the Nigerian Customs Service would help stop this practice and we have high hope and confidence in the Customs with the present leadership. They have the capacity to do it. We also hope that in due course the bad eggs in the customs will be fished out,” he added.

 

But days after Chief Audu Ogbeh made the announcement, the borders are yet to be shut and the farmers and millers are still watching.