Import Smuggling Highlights Domestic Rice Concerns

Nigeria continues to struggle with an influx of smuggled rice, which agrimoney.com reports accounts for over a half of the 1.6mn tonnes of rice imported into the country in 2009-10. While total Nigerian rice imports have been steady from year to year, evidence from the USDA Lagos bureau suggests that there has been a strong increase in undocumented cross border rice trading. BMI believes that while the smuggling of imports may never be fully eradicated in Nigeria, improvements in domestic rice sector efficiency could go a long way towards mitigating the problem.

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