Maclean et al. - 2002 - Rice almanac source book for the most important e

Rice in West Africa
Revolutionary change in the preferences
of West African consumers has created a
wide and growing imbalance between
regional rice supplies and demand. The major
trends in consumption, production, and imports of
rice are illustrated in Table 1. Since 1973, regional
demand has grown at 6.0% annually,
driven by a combination of population growth
(2.9% growth rate) and substitution away from
the region’s traditional coarse grains. The
consumption of traditional cereals, mainly
sorghum and millet, has fallen by 12 kg per
capita, and their share in cereals used as food
from 62% in the early 1970s to 50% in the early
1990s.
In contrast, the share of rice in cereals
consumed has grown from 15% to 25% over the
same period, and from 12% to 18% in calorie
terms from the 1960s to the end of the 1990s.
Much of this dramatic shift occurred in the late
1970s and ’80s. After decreasing to around 2.5%,
per capita rice consumption has begun to increase
again at more than 3% annually since the late
1990s. Accounting for population growth, total
rice consumption has increased at nearly 6% per
year during the last five years, meaning that it
will have increased 2.5-fold by 2010.
The most important factor contributing to the
shift in consumer preferences away from
traditional staples and toward rice is rapid
urbanization and associated changes in family
occupational structure. As women enter the
workforce, the opportunity cost of their time
increases and convenience foods such as rice,
which can be prepared more quickly, rise in
importance. Similarly, as men work at greater
distances from their homes in the urban setting, a
greater proportion of meals is consumed from the
market, where the ease of rice preparation has
given it a distinct advantage.
These trends have meant that rice is no
longer a luxury food, but has become a major
source of calories for the urban poor. Urban
consumption surveys in Burkina Faso, for
example, have found that the poorest third of
urban households obtains 33% of its cereal-based
calories from rice. For that same group, rice purchases
represent 45% of its cash expenditures on
cereals, a share that is substantially higher than
for other income classes. Similar findings have
been obtained in several other West African
nations, demonstrating that rice availability and
rice prices have become a major determinant of
the welfare of the poorest segments of West African
consumers who are the least food-secure.
Production and imports
In comparison with the rapid growth in demand,
regional rice production rose at 4.6% annually
from 1973 to 2000. Although this rate was high
compared to the performance of other major
crops, it meant that regional rice production only
barely exceeded population growth, and was
meeting only two-thirds of the increments in demand.
The source of the increases in rice production
carries the important danger signal that such
growth is not likely to be sustainable. Regional
rice yields, which average only 40% of the world
mean, have risen at only 1.5% per year since
1983. The major source of growth has been the
expansion of cultivated area, which has grown at
a remarkable 3.7% annually over the period.
The widening gap between regional supply
and demand has been met by imports. The rapid
increase in demand and much slower growth in
production from 1973 to 1983 contributed to a
dramatic jump in imports,which rose at more than
20% annually from 0.6 million t in the early
1970s to 2.2 million t a decade later. Since 1983,
growth in imports has decelerated as domestic
production has improved, leading to a much more
modest 2.3% annual increase in imports, which
averaged 2.8 million t in the early 1990s. Imports
reached more than 3 million t in 1999, costing
Rice around the world 79