How local innovation will help overcome West Africa’s rice crisis
West Africa still imports nearly half its rice, leaving local farmers sidelined and economies at the mercy of global price swings and climate shocks. Scaling smallholder-inclusive business innovations could catalyse value chain development - fast-tracking rice self-sufficiency
Which tastes better: Ghanaian Jollof or its Nigerian counterpart? The answer, of course, depends on who you ask. According to Mr Eniola Fabusoro, our Country Director in Nigeria, it’s without a doubt Nigerian. Ask Mr Joshua Toatoba, CEO of Rujo AgriTrade Ghana, and you’ll hear a spirited defense of the Ghanaian speciality.
While this rivalry stirs up regional pride, both camps share a dependence on the dish’s hero ingredient. And here lies a deeper, more pressing issue. One that transcends kitchens and culinary debates.
West Africa consumes significantly more rice than it produces. Despite its status as a dietary staple across the region, local production struggles to keep pace with rising population growth, shifting dietary preferences, and low productivity per hectare. The result? A supply deficit of over 43%[1] in Nigeria, and 50%[2] in Ghana, bridged primarily through imports.
Such reliance on foreign rice is economically and politically unsustainable. Volatile exchange rates, import price shocks (especially during COVID-19), and rising inflation have made imported rice increasingly unaffordable. Recognising this, ECOWAS (through the ECOWAS Rice Observatory) aims to achieve regional rice self-sufficiency by 2030.
It’s an ambitious, yet necessary goal - and one that will be achieved only through considered implementation of smallholder-led innovations. These must take into account the climate-related, geopolitical and financial challenges that our farmers face. Drought-resistant inputs, and digital training and information will support smallholders with planning and modernising methods, for example. Maximising access to block farming, insurance bundling or tripartite financing agreements could provide the flexibility required for farmers to expand and regenerate their practices; all the while mitigating financial and market risks.
Nutritious, women-led but with work still to do
While the potential of the rice value chain is undeniable, the path to self-sufficiency is not without obstacles. This is especially true for agri-SME companies and smallholder farmers at the centre of the value chain - these are the people asked to drive innovation and efficiency, yet they operate on razor-thin margins, struggle for finance, and are consistently exposed to volatile markets.
IDH’s work, through the Grains for Growth Program and the Farmfit Africa Program, highlighted five consistent roadblocks:
- Macroeconomic factors: High inflation and exchange rate volatility especially in Nigeria putting pressure on the cost of inputs – which are mainly imported – with costs tripling in the last three years
- Weather and climate: Erratic weather, often from prolonged drought to unexpected floods resulting in delayed planting seasons, damaged crops and significant losses. Some of our partners in Nigeria (Alluvial Agriculture and Coscharis Farms Ltd) faced up to 100% loss in some years
- High insecurity: High levels of insecurity in some of the key rice growing regions such as the Northern and Southeast regions in Nigeria; particularly due to continuous community clashes
- Inadequate infrastructure: Poor road infrastructure, storage and machinery resulting in higher service delivery and sourcing costs, and high post-harvest losses
- Access to finance: Limited access to affordable finance constrains the ability for companies and farmers, particularly women, to scale up operations. For companies, inadequate working capital limits their ability to aggregate, resulting in incidences of side selling
These examples reflect the broader structural issues prevalent across the rice ecosystem.
Resilience + ingenuity = innovation
Despite such challenges, we’re seeing remarkable signs of resilience and ingenuity on the ground. Across the West African region, visionary agri-SME leaders, unafraid to innovate, are charting a new way forward. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.
Take Cosharis Ltd, a company investing in the rice value chain in Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria. Their Block Farming model is helping reduce operational costs by centralising input delivery and training. An endline Inclusive Business Analysis conducted in 2024, showed interventions provided by IDH resulted in yield increase from 2 to 3.5 MT/ha, and income growth by 100%, and offtake 42,525 MT paddy.
Meanwhile, Northern Ghana’s Tamanaa Company Ltd has embraced a gender-transformative business model, tapping into the underutilised potential of women farmers in rice production. The company has helped establish Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) for women rice farmers, increasing their access to credit where banks are not feasible.
Tamanaa has also installed rice parboiling centres and rice husk processing units, cutting down on post-harvest losses and creating additional value from byproducts locally. This is a model that benefits farmers, businesses and the environment.
Similarly, Rujo AgriTrade has invested in seed multiplication and organic fertiliser to build climate resilience. Perhaps, most critically, they offer guaranteed offtake contracts, giving farmers a secure market and predictable income.
We have guaranteed offtake contracts with farmers that spell out our obligations to offtake the produce from farmers at harvest. This way, farmers can earn from growing rice
Rujo AgriTrade is able to benefit from their 5000+ base of smallholder farmers through higher rice yield for their business, and more quality rice.
Learning from our engagement with multiple agri-SMEs across Africa, we have developed the IDH Innovation Library that maps different business objectives to innovative solutions and highlights key success factors.
Innovation at scale: Navigating the road ahead
The question is no longer whether scalable smallholder-inclusive innovation exists. It does. The challenge now is: how do we amplify and scale models that work across the region?
Practitioners must start by evaluating the evidence-backed insights detailed in the Innovation Library, then mapping those innovations that deliver both business returns and farmer impact. Agri-SMEs can then pilot the highest value solutions, testing, assessing and iterating in regular cycles. Our inclusive business analysis helps evaluate the costs and potential benefits to effectively guide these pilots.
The building blocks are already in place. What we now need is to scale them collaboratively, inclusively and with environment, equality and better incomes front and centre.
