ABSTRACT
Rice is becoming an important food staple in Africa. Over the past decades, its consumption has grown rapidly not only in the Western African region where it has long been a traditional staple food, but also in other sub-regions. The growth rate of production has not kept up with consumption. Paddy rice production went from 3.7 million metric tons in 1965 to approximately 17 million tons in 2007 (around 11 million tons in equivalent milled rice), following an average annual growth rate of 3.8 per cent (https://faostat.fao.org, 2009). Consumption, by contrast, went from 2.5 million tons in 1965 to 15 million tons milled rice in 2006, following an annual growth rate of 4.8 per cent. This growth in consumption has been driven mainly by population growth, increasing urbanization rates and rising incomes. As a consequence of these differences in levels and growth of production and consumption, the region has become a major rice importer in the world market. In 2006, sub-Saharan Africa imported 8 million tons and accounted for about one-third of global rice imports.
