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Côte d`Ivoire: An emerging rice powerhouse in West Africa
Tuesday, 2015/08/25 | 08:09:45
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Savitri Mohapatra | IRRI, Aug 2015 Once a rice exporter, Côte d’Ivoire has spent in recent years nearly USD 500 million annually on rice imports. Now, the country has set its sights on becoming West Africa’s rice granary through a program estimated to cost more than USD 1.3 billion from 2012 to 2016.
AfricaRice Director General Harold Roy-Macauley visits the AfricaRice M’bé station in Bouake, Côte d’Ivore. (Photo: R. Raman/AfricaRice)
Often called “the jewel of West Africa” because of its strong economy, Côte d’Ivoire is widely known as the world’s top producer of cocoa. Now, the country has launched an ambitious program for agricultural diversification and has set its sights on becoming West Africa’s rice granary.
“We want to produce enough rice not only to supply for our own needs but also for the import needs of the subregion,” said Yacouba Dembélé, director of the National Office for Rice Development.
The country seems to be making great strides toward achieving this goal. In March 2015, Ivorian Agriculture Minister Mamadou Sangafowa Coulibaly expressed his happiness over the spectacular growth of rice production in the country. “Milled rice production jumped from 550,000 tons in 2011 to 984,000 tons in 2012. It is estimated to have reached 1.3 million tons in 2014.”
FAO’s Rice Market Monitor of April 2015 indicates that rice imports to Côte d’Ivoire dropped in 2014 compared with 2013, thanks to a generally favorable climate combined with state support and special attention paid to the rice sector as part of the country’s self-sufficiency drive.
Importance of rice in Côte d’Ivoire
Côte d’Ivoire was once a rice exporter but, with progressive disengagement of the government from the rice sector, it has not been able to meet its own requirements and has been importing huge quantities of rice, spending nearly USD 500 million annually on rice imports in recent years.
As in the food crisis in 2008, this is a risky strategy that led to riots in some African countries. Since then, the Ivorian government has made active efforts to improve domestic rice production and prevent such emergencies in the future.
A national rice development strategy (NRDS) was formulated in 2008 under the Coalition for African Rice Development framework, with technical support from the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice). To further boost the rice sector, the government revised the NRDS to cover the period 2012-20.
A new vision and strategy for the country’s rice development
The NRDS emphasizes that the country can achieve its goal as it has abundant lands suitable for growing rice, favorable climate with ample rainfall, trained farmers, promising technologies, good market potential, and a favorable economic and institutional environment.
The new strategy focuses on the entire value chain—from seed to production, processing, and marketing. Priorities include development of a seed sector, rehabilitation of irrigation sites, mechanization, support for processing and marketing of local rice, improving the institutional framework along the rice value chain, and an information system to provide business operators with reliable data.
The entire program is estimated to cost more than USD 1.3 billion over four years (2012-16). This is being mobilized through a rice development fund and from development partners and the private sector. The government is also trying to attract international investors to set up joint rice projects in the country. |
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