"This production is intended for self-consumption. We no longer want to buy imported rice which is very expensive," says Diétéo Diouf, head of a women's association, in the middle of the rice fields.

The global food crisis and inflation caused by the war in Ukraine and the rise in grain and energy prices have made the search for food self-sufficiency in Africa a matter of urgency.

The Asian giant has banned the export of broken rice (lower-priced rice with grains broken accidentally or not) and introduced a 20% tax on exports of high-quality rice to improve domestic supply after a drought important in the main producing regions.

To fight against speculation, Senegal recently set the price per kilo (about 0.5 euros) of Indian broken rice at 325 FCFA, one of the least expensive and most consumed, and almost the only one to be imported into the country. country, according to the coordinator of the national rice self-sufficiency program, Waly Diouf.

Rice is essential for the preparation of ceebu jën, rice with fish and the most popular dish in Senegal.

Panic and tensions

Africa accounts for 32% of world rice imports for 13% of the world's population, according to Africa Rice, a research center in Abidjan, made up of 28 member countries.

"Local rice production covers only about 60% of current demand in sub-Saharan Africa," the center points out.

Workers unload sacks full of rice from a truck at a rice mill in Ross Bethio, in the Senegal River Valley, on October 27, 2022 © SEYLLOU / AFP/Archives

Thus, the Indian decision to limit its exports has created panic in several African countries where rice is an essential commodity.

In the Comoros, an archipelago of 890,000 inhabitants where more than a quarter of the population lives on less than two euros a day, the surge in the price of rice caused clashes at the end of September.

In Liberia, queues have formed in front of wholesalers amid rumors of shortages.

Prices have reached the equivalent of 23 euros per 25kg bag, compared to around 13 euros usually.

"The threat (of shortage) is real in Senegal" when India says it will no longer export it, says Mr. Diouf.

The country experienced in 2008 "food riots" due to a sharp increase in the price of basic foodstuffs.

Over the past two years, "Senegal has each time produced some 840,000 tonnes of rice, or nine months of consumption, an increasing quantity", assures Mr. Diouf.

The country "imports an average of 900,000 tons of rice each year. This exceeds the needs, but the import allows (to guarantee) the availability of the product and to avoid speculation", he explains.

Produce locally

The objective is to reduce this dependence.

"In 2030, consumption in Senegal should reach 1.5 million tonnes of rice per year. We have worked on a strategy to move towards self-sufficiency", says Waly Diouf.

He estimates at 1,371 billion CFA francs (about two billion euros) the financial effort necessary to achieve self-sufficiency.

Women rice producers watch during the harvest in the community rice fields of Ndofane, November 8, 2022 © SEYLLOU / AFP / Archives

"We need more rice fields, credits, combine harvesters, to redo our irrigation system", underlines Mouhamadou Moustapha Diack, president of a union of producers in Boundoum (north).

There, the dykes and irrigation canals between the rice paddies are worn, dotted with eucalyptus and water lilies.

Beyond the quantity, the supposed lower quality of the rice produced in Senegal has long turned consumers away.

"That has changed," says AFP Birame Diouf, manager of a rice mill in Ross Béthio (north), a factory that removes impurities such as small gravel.

The grains are engulfed in huge vats, where they are hulled, cleaned and transformed into whole or broken rice.

A farm worker spreads fertilizer on his rice field in the village of Ciagaar, near Rosso, in the Senegal River Valley, on October 27, 2022 © SEYLLOU / AFP/Archives

Senegal hopes to follow the Ivorian example where "the quantities imported from India have experienced a 24% regression from 2021 to 2022. There has been a substitution towards Ivorian rice in clear progression and secondarily towards other origins", Regina Adea, communication officer for the Agency for the Development of the Rice Sector in Côte d'Ivoire (Aderiz), told AFP.

Another strategy is that of Nigeria, where imported rice is highly taxed on arrival at ports and prohibited from entering by road.

© 2022 AFP