By Herbert O'Douza

During mid-year of 2008, with sky-rocketing prices of commodities like crude, sugar, palm oil and rice, the world were threatened not only by hyper-inflation but also with the dark threat of food crisis, hunger and ultimately civil unrest.

The worst affected were developing nations that depended on imports for their rice demands. In Nigeria, due to the quick thinking of the Federal Council and the Presidency, it was averted by the directive of zero-duty period for importers of rice to bring in their imports and pass the reduced cost to the consumers.

Large local importers like Olam (Chanrai family), Stallion Group (owned by Vaswani Brothers Sunil Vaswani, Haresh and Mahesh), Churchgate and Ibeto imported substantial quantities of rice during the stipulated duty free period announced by the FG that ended on October 31, 2008. Heavy port congestion delayed berthing and onward discharge in the case of some vessels past the deadline in second ports. Several vessels of these major importers were able to discharge in Port Harcourt only after the deadline although they entered Nigerian waters prior to that.

However, the objective of price reduction in the market was achieved to the benefit of millions of Nigerian people whose primary staple food is rice. Take for instance the price of a 50kg bag of rice that was selling in the range of N 14,000 per bag – the prices during the duty free period and until January 2009 were brought down drastically to less than N 6000 per 50kg bag.

The huge quantities brought into the country also generated stiff competition amongst importers thereby keeping the prices to a bare minimum. Most of the importers it is learnt were selling more or less at cost price during this time.

Also due to the high seasons saw the masses enjoying their Sallah, Christmas and the New Year festivals with cheaper rice. A fact which all the more carries importance as Nigeria sees rice more as a festival food and the importers ensured that the festivals were well enjoyed and celebrated.

WARDA of Africa says that the global food crisis which sent rice prices above $1000 per tonne last year is an opportunity for African countries to better their economies. Despite Africa’s favorable climate conditions, records in 2006 from WARDA show that sub Saharan Africa for instance imports around 40 percent of rice, costing about $2 billion. Most of these imports come from Asia which is being affected by the negative effects of climatic change that has resulted in dwindling water reserves.

It therefore means that supply from Asia in the future may not be guaranteed; therefore WARDA has called on African nations to take action in order to become self-sufficient in rice production.

Later on the Vaswani Brothers launched their N 162 billionJV with the Government of Nigeria for large scale rice farming and milling. Recently, more projects are being announced in the region.