DAILY NIGERIAN
Some rice traders in Lagos have lamented the inability of local rice farmers to meet the growing demand for the produce.
The traders spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday in Lagos.
Recall that the Federal Government recently reaffirmed its commitment to increasing local production of wheat, rice, maize, sorghum and soyabean, through the provision of relevant farm inputs.
John Nwabueze, a foodstuff trader at Alimosho, lamented the growing cost of the produce and the inability of locally grown rice to meet rising demands.
He, however, noted that the quality of locally grown rice had improved and could stand at par with foreign rice.
“If the closure of the border is completely enforced, Nigerians will have no choice but to stick to locally grown rice.
“When there is scarcity of the smuggled rice, then we will wholly embrace our home-grown rice.
“Local rice farmers may not initially be able to meet the growing demands of rice if the borders are watertight shut but gradually, they will meet up.’’
He said that the reason why most Nigerians patronised foreign rice was the poor awareness of the benefits of local rice.
“We have very good local rice brands without stones and well-polished but Nigerians are used to foreign rice.
“When we started eating Nigerian rice when the border was initially closed, we had a lot of poorly processed rice in the market.
“But now the situation has changed; however, most customers insist that they will rather buy expensive rice than buy local rice.
“We want the government to either completely enforce the closure of the borders and put an end to smuggled rice or officially open the borders for legal rice imports,” he said.
On his part, Temitayo Abdulhakeem, another rice trader, said though Nigerian rice was picking up in quality, it was insufficient to meet growing local demands.
“If the borders are completely shut and no infiltration of rice into the country, local farmers may not be able to meet the demands.
