Rice Production: Imperative Coherence In Strategy

While citizens who succeed are certainly ‘enjoying’ the catch and would do so for long depending on the quantity acquired, those who cannot endure the tough and risky procedure are no doubt gnashing their teeth in despair. Clearly so as rice is said to be the second highly consumed cereals in the country after maize.
By virtue of their poor purchasing power, very few citizens could resist the seemingly attractive price, whatever the quality of the produce served them. That is why they spend sleepless nights to get numbers for the purchase and thereafter line up under the scorching December and January sun to buy imported rice at what the seller and apologists of the deal call reduced cost. This is astonishing, to say the least, knowing what Cameroon is made of!
Whatever story whoever could tell of the rice saga, there is every reason for a serious rethink. How did Cameroon get here that citizens of a country with huge potentials in rice production import to eat to a point of even spending nights and going through thick and thin to buy rice from elsewhere? From north to south and east to west, there are vast arable land and enough water sources. More so, the abundant rains during the rainy season; are God-given prospects for all-year rain-fed and irrigated rice production to meet the growing needs of the population.
The decision to back and promote rice would have been viewed as economic patriotism had government rolled out the efforts to popularise made-in-Cameroon cereals. Whereas rice from Ndop, in the North West, Yagoua in the Far North and Nanga Eboko in the Centre, are reportedly very tasteful. It is even believed that so many Cameroonians do not know about the niceties of the local produce talk less of how to get them. Hope they are not stocked somewhere unsold while imported and apparently doubtful quality imported rice steals the show in markets. Their consumption could have been promoted especially during the festive season. What citizens were rather served with and even encouraged to go for as a government move to curb rising cost of living and ensure easier feasts for all and sundry was imported rice whose cost alone, coupled with the populations’ purchasing power, is evocative of the quality of the produce. Anyway, buyers went for what was available and affordable.
More disturbing even is the fact that government has for some time now been preaching the import/substitution policy; which entails reducing imports on what can be produced locally, to better the chronic trade balance deficit over the years.  Paradoxically, some State functionaries seem to be advocates of imports to a point of grandstanding in the regrettably contradictory game. This is inconceivable incoherence which obviously benefits a few who succumb to the pressure of powerful importers against collective gain which would have been ascertained by boosting local production, in quality and quantity, to ensure that the population produce what they consume and consume what they produce. The noticeable inconsistency depicts divergence of view and actions by stakeholders.  Whereas, synergy is more than ever needed in lifting the country off the grip of incessant imports looking at the huge scarce liquidity spent yearly to ship in goods, even food, which the country has potentials to produce aplenty.
Different actors absolutely need to sit up and toe the same line. No country in the world ever attained a middle-income status importing almost everything, even food to eat. Government must be able to boldly break the omelette of imports to build a solid economic tissue centred on optimal local production to feed the population and much-needed industries with raw materials. This is through maximising existing potentials to enhance local production for the present and future generations. Rice development strategies that are being presented year in and out, must be made to produce desired results. Difficult in the present self-centred context.
The problems of sustainable rice farming are well known. In fact, it emerged from a February 2019 Cabinet meeting, which focused on how to reduce the country’s dependency on imported products, that rice production in Cameroon is plagued by lack of improved seeds, absence of tools for mechanisation and threshing, lack of farm-to-market roads, the least of which is not...