Nigeria is now the Biggest Producer of Rice in Africa

January, 17th 2020

Nigeria is the largest rice producer in Africa because it produces 4 million tonnes out of the Africa average of 14.6 million tonnes of rice annually. Egypt, which Nigeria has edged out of the lead, used to produce 4.3 tonnes annually but suffered a decline of almost 40 percent in the last one year. The reduction in production was attributed to the Egyptian government decision to limit cultivation to preserve water resources.

But while Egypt's production is on decline, Nigeria's has been on the rise in the last three years to reach the current level. The good news in the rice sector may not be surprising to stakeholders already familiar with developments in the nation's agricultural sector. But for others, it will encourage interest in what's going on and how to be part of it.

The success in rice production would lead to renewed interest in the partnership between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN since 2015.

This is a gap which has now been closed by the CBN under Godwin Emefiele. In keeping with his promise to run a central bank that would serve the growth and development needs of the country, Emefiele has ensured the CBN becomes a strategic driver of economic growth of the country. The CBN under him has introduced various initiatives for concessionary funding of agriculture, which is widely recognized as the sector that has the potential to drive economic growth.

These initiatives and intervention schemes can broadly be classified under sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, micro, small and medium scale enterprises, power and energy and banking. But nowhere have these interventions yielded more so quickly as in the agriculture sector where rice production has received the most focus.

CBN development finance initiatives like the Agricultural Credit Guaranty Scheme, Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme and Anchor Burrowers program (ABP), among others have tremendously helped to reposition the agriculture sector in the country.

Source: allafrica