Developing competitive rice value chains (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
Consumers in Benin developed strong preference to imported white rice. It is suggested that upgrading local rice value chain will require efforts on post-harvest segments by adding value to the product. Therefore, efforts have been deployed in the recent years to upgrade the value chain. Using experimental auction based on Becker-DegrootMarshack (BDM) mechanism combined with the endow-and-upgrade and a two stage approach, this study assessed: i) consumers’ willingness to upgrade and to pay for different parboiled rice types, ii) the competitiveness of local parboiled rice relative to imported parboiled and iii) the price premium of each improved processing technology. Results show that consumers will accept parboiled rice only if it is high quality rice. Among the local parboiled rice, the one produced with GEM parboiling technology, milled with rubber roll mill and sorted with optical sorter is more competitive than imported rice. Among technologies, optical sorter is the most impo...
Agricultural and Food Science Journal of Ghana Vol. 7, 2008
Consumer preferences for quality characteristics of rice in Accra have specific effects on the price of rice. Statistical analysis of the relationship between income and education of consumers and the quality of rice they prefer, reveal a significant relationship between income and education on shape and aroma. Also, taste, retail price and absence of foreign matter are the quality attributes that most consumers prefer. Low percentage broken, type of packaging and advertisement are the factors least cited by consumers as influencing their choice of rice in Accra. A hedonic price estimation model reveals that consumers of rice in Accra pay highest premiums for taste, aroma and shape. Consumers also pay some premium for smaller percentage broken and scarcity of a type of rice in the market. Any breeding programme for rice for Ghanaian markets should emphasize on the inherent quality characteristics consumers are sensitive to and these include taste, swelling capacity, aroma, cooking time, and shape. Processors and marketers should aim at reducing breakage of grain and levels of foreign matter in the final product. Extension systems should incorporate the production of quality rice in their messages to farmers, processors and traders.
The Structure of Rice Retail Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Uganda
Rice is the second largest source of food energy in sub-Saharan Africa and its consumption has been increasing most rapidly among major food grains. A large part of this increase has been satisfied by import, absorbing as much as one-third of the rice traded in the world. The need to enhance food-security makes it imperative for countries in the region to reduce the dependence on the import. It has been said that a barrier to attaining this target is urban consumers’ preference of imported rice over domestic rice that is of lower quality. Although there has been a great proliferation of the literature on rice in sub-Saharan Africa, no attempt has been made to present an overall perspective of the national rice retail market that shows the structure of rice consumption in terms of quantity and quality by area of consumption and country of origin. Using data obtained from nation-wide market surveys, this paper describes the structure of the rice retail market in Uganda. The market comprises a traditional segment with 95% of consumption and a modern segment with remaining 5%. Both segments are efficient and linked to each other. Contrary to the pessimistic view pervasive in the literature, local rice in Uganda is popular in the market and imported rice is priced to be competitive with the local rice brand preferred by consumers
ENHANCING COMPETITIVENESS OF RWANDA'S RICE THROUGH VALUE CHAIN DEVELOPMENT; AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
Since 2004, rice is a priority crop for food security and poverty reduction in Rwanda. Since the rice production has been declared a priority, the Government’s investment efforts have been directed towards to increase locally produced rice in order to reach its ambitious target of becoming self-sufficient in rice production. Despite these efforts in rice sector development, the national demand for rice has not yet satisfied as rice consumption has also been rising. Therefore, the country is still dependent on rice from outside; mainly from Tanzania, Pakistan, Uganda and Thailand. This study on Rice value chain in Rwanda as a Competitiveness Analysis targeting to increase the local rice on the markets by reducing importation of rice in short term objective and in the long term attain self-sufficiency with a possibility of export. To achieve these objectives, the locally produced rice has to be competitive on domestic market and on regional market in long-term. In other words, it has to be of quality and quantity that satisfy the demand. The overall objective of this study is to analyze the competitiveness factors of rice production in Rwanda on the local and regional markets. The study used both primary and secondary data sources. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and Ms excel were used to analyze data. The generated outputs were presented in forms of tables and charts with respective percentages. The multiple linear regression analysis was used to assess the rice demand for both local and imported and calculation of costs of rice farmers. The results of this study indicated that the average yield per hectare at the visited area 5.7 Ton per hectare, which is relatively good compared to yield per hectare in the region which is 3.5Ton per hectare However the local production costs per Ha which 1,023,51Rwf is very high. The potential for improving competitiveness of locally produced rice in Rwanda has been assessed by looking at the nature of demand for both local and imported rice on one hand. This is the upper end of the rice supply chain. Analysis has also been done the lower end of the chain by looking at the nature of the short-run cost structure for rice farmers. From the demand perspective, it seems difficult to improve the competitiveness by for example lowering the market price for the local rice. Results obtained seem to suggest that, locally produced rice is a luxury its demand is income elastic and it has a positively sloped demand curve albeit not significantly so. From the analysis of the cost structure, farmers need to increase their levels of output to realize unexploited economies of scale, which would in turn enable them and other players in the rice supply chain to become more competitive. Regarding the Horizontal and vertical integration of actors along the value chain, the results of the study shown that 88% of farmers sold their production through cooperative/union while 12% sold individually. Also the results of the study shown that only 46% of farmers have a contract farming between farmers and buyers of their produce, while 79% have a contract with inputs dealers and 21% don’t have. On the market the results of the study shows that 70% of consumers prefer imported rice due to quality of rice as reported, while the level of sells or demanded rice on the market, the results shows that 55% of consumers prefer imported rice while 45% only like local rice. This is attributed to the culture of local rice in known a low quality and the distribution of local rice is not accessing more consumers. The respondents revealed area which need more attention by all players including improving quality (88%), improving the supply (75%), improving the relation between actors (68%) and increase the quantity (50%). The information generated from this study mainly helped to direct actors in the chains especially the producers, processors and traders. Findings based on the results of the study indicated different factors which may increase the competitiveness of locally produced rice on the local and regional markets those include. - To continue increasing production and productivity of rice - Increasing the extension services - Improving the quality of rice and marketing. - Streamline the horizontal and vertical integration of key players on the market The value chains actors will use this information in improving their way of operating and linking to reach the target market. Consequently profitability and the product value will be improved. Therefore this will help them to be more competitive on the Rwanda market.
Quality determinates of rice price in open bag markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
Journal of Agribusiness in Developing and Emerging Economies
PurposeWeaknesses in the grades and standards system in low-income countries across Sub-Saharan Africa undermine the transparency of agricultural markets. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana and Mozambique rice is predominately sold in open bags and if rice price does not reflect its quality, then inefficiencies may lead to consumer welfare losses. Importantly, it is possible that impoverished communities are priced out of the market due to inflated and inefficient prices. The objective of this study is to examine determinates of rice price by estimating the impact of selected rice quality attributes on rice prices in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana and Mozambique.Design/methodology/approachWe collected 363 rice samples from open air markets in Bukavu (DRC), Nampula (Mozambique) and across Ghana in 2019. Each rice sample was analyzed in a food science lab for the quality attributes: percentage of chalk and brokens, chalk impact, length and length-to-width ra...
Rice imports in West Africa: trade regime and food policy formulation
West African agriculture rice production represents only 50% of consumers' needs in the sub-region. The on-going negotiation on the Agreement on Agriculture and the establishment of a custom union within the ECOWAS offer an opportunity to reopen the discussion on the possible impact of appropriate trade regulation to stimulate the development of the domestic rice value chain. Based on the review of the outcome of recent studies and national statistics, comparing the rice sector history across different West African countries, the poster underlines that the competitiveness of domestic rice production does not depend only upon the cost efficiency of rice producer. It is adversely affected by the performance of the post-harvest operations which does not allow domestic product to match the quality of imported rice in terms of homogeneity and cleanliness. Consumers are ready to pay for a higher price for imported clean and well packed rice. Therefore the design of appropriate trade r...
Evolution and prospects of the rice mill industry in Uganda
African Journal of Agricultural Research, 2014
For the development of rice production in sub-Saharan Africa, it is critical to improve the quality of domestic rice produced and sold in the market. Being at the entry point in the upstream of the postharvest marketing chains, rice mills hold the pivotal position in the improvement of rice quality. Based on data collected from rice mills all over Uganda, this paper presents the evolution of the rice mill industry in the last two decades. It looks into the present state of rice mill operation, examines the structure of the rice milling market, analyzes the cost and returns structure of rice mill operation, and discusses the future directions of the rice mill industry. The rice mill industry in Uganda has developed at a remarkable pace since the early 2000s. The high profitability of rice milling business and a low entry barrier facilitated small scale rice mills to have grown rapidly. Rapid increase of the number of rice mills still continues particularly in newly emerging rice growing areas but the growth begins to stagnate in traditional rice growing regions. The majority of rice mills are small-sized but some large-scale ones have been emerging. In traditional rice growing regions, the rate of milling fee is declining due to increasing competition and begins to reflect the difference in rice quality. Under the scale economy inherent in rice mill operation and growing quality consciousness in the rice milling market, milling machines would become larger and more sophisticated replacing the current competitive milling market with oligopolistic one. It is important to develop efficient small to medium scale milling system with emphasis on quality improvement features such as de-stoning and grading so that small scale rice mills can be competitive step by step countervailing against the scale economy of large scale rice mills.
Responding to consumers' preference in African rice markets : Experiences of Africa Rice Center
2015
The main objective of this study is to decrypt Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) research for development strategies implemented to respond to consumers preferences for rice in sub-Sahara Africa. To achieve this, the study adopted case studies evidences and experimental approaches 1) to provide insight on urban consumers’ preferences for rice (local and imported rice) in relation to their willingness to pay and 2) to illustrate with the key value addition strategies implemented by AfricaRice to response to consumers demand in term of quality and attractiveness of rice products in Africa. The results of the decryption show that rice varieties grown locally in many African countries have good organoleptic and nutritional attributes that meet urban consumers’ preference if properly processed and branded. The out-scaling of the improved GEM rice processing plants developed by AfricaRice is not only playing a significant role in the upgrading of the quality of locally produced rice, but it...
This paper examines whether the structure of the paddy / rice market in Sri Lanka is competitive and efficient particularly by undertaking two tracer surveys. From these surveys it was revealed that the profit margins accruing to almost all the players involved in the paddy/rice value chains of both Nadu and Samba varieties are not excessive when compared with the average bank lending rate of 15 percent. The results of the tracer surveys also show that both the Nadu and Samba paddy/ rice value chains are economically efficient. There are concerns however, about the poor quality of rice milled by most small and medium scale traditional rice mills in the country. It was also disclosed that there is no hard and fast evidence to prove the allegation that the rice millers and wholesalers exploit both the rice producers and consumers by using oligopsonic oligopolistic practices in both the producer and consumer markets such as 'cornering of the market' Key Words: paddy/rice value chain, profit margins of paddy/tice, market structure, Sri Lanka