Nigeria slams low quality Thai rice

Nigeria slams low quality Thai rice

A Nigerian minister has criticised Thailand and India for exporting old rice stocks to the African country.

Nigerian Agriculture Minister Akinwumi Adesina has publicly warned that some rice exporters, particularly Thailand and India, are dumping their old rice stocks, some of which are 10-15 years old, on Nigeria.

According to a Nigerian Tribune report on Monday, Mr Adesina said during the 2012 annual lecture of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) in Lagos that the cheap foreign rice is hurting local rice producers and may cost the country up to US$150 million annually.

The Nigerian minister expects that import volume is likely to go up in the future and unless an import substitution programme is implemented, the country will go broke.

Honorary president of the Rice Exporters Association, Chukiat Opaswong, is urging the government to provide an explanation to Nigeria which is now planning to produce its own crop in order to reduce rice imports from Thailand and India, according to a report in Post Today.

Mr Chukiat believes that the whole issue is just a misunderstanding which must be clarified as soon as possible because the reputation of Thai rice is at stake.

He pointed out that Nigeria imports parboiled rice which can only be produced from newly harvested rice. Because of this, it is impossible that old rice stocks had been shipped to the African country. 

He suspected that the Nigerian minister's claim was probably aimed at an aggressive move to promote domestic rice production.

Each year, Nigeria cannot produce enough rice to meet domestic demand. As a result, it has to import about one million tonnes of foreign rice of which 300,000-400,000 tonnes comes from Thailand.

From the beginning of this year until Nov 12, Thailand has already exported 4.4 million tonnes of white and parboiled rice, a 43% decrease from the same period in 2011. Combined with jasmine rice, the country is likely to export a total of 5.7-5.8 million tonnes during the period.


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