CÔTE D’IVOIRE – The Ivorian government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, plans to dedicate 15.7 billion CFA francs (US$26 million) to the Rice Promotion Program in 2024.
According to Ecofin Agency, this envelope represents 5% of the budget allocated by the executive to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development which amounts to 311.1 billion CFA francs (US$511 million).
While the production of milled rice in the country is expected at 1.4 million tonnes in 2023, the executive is called upon to increase this volume to more than 2.6 million tonnes to achieve its self-sufficiency target set for 2025.
Ivory Coast is the second largest importer of rice in Africa behind Nigeria. The country depends 56% on imports for its milled rice consumption needs, which are around 2.6 million tonnes per year, according to USDA data.
In 2022, the bill for cereal purchases on the international market totaled more than US$800 million, according to data compiled on the Trade Map platform.
However, the country is seeking to reduce the cost of its purchases in an international cereal market whose development depends on the commercial policy of the main exporters
For the implementation of this program, the priority actions concern improving access of small farmers to quality seeds, developing rice growing areas, and improving the level of processing of paddy rice.
According to Kobenan Adjoumani, the Minister of Agriculture, one of the biggest challenges to the development of the rice sector remains mechanization.
Indeed, the targeted equipment utilization rate by 2025 is 30% compared to a level below 10% currently, in a context where rice cultivation currently covers more than 710,000 hectares.
Recently, the Ivorian government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with South Korea to implement a US$10 million project in the rice sector.
Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani, Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and his South Korean counterpart Chung Hwang-Keun signed the MOU for cooperation on October 18 in Abidjan.
The objective stated by the authorities is to provide a stock of 5,500 tonnes of high-yielding rice seeds each year at the end of the project for a period of 5 years.
In addition, in August, the government launched the construction of a rice processing plant in Odienné as the country bets on improving the supply of the commodity on the local market.
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