AfricaRice kicks off rice market intelligence surveys in Liberia

Liberian rice farmer participating in a Seeds4Liberia project survey.(Photo courtesy of AfricaRice)

by Edgar Twine

In a recent Brookings "Viewpoint" article (Getting rice right in Liberia | Brookings), former Liberian Minister of Agriculture J. M. Cooper observed that Liberians "hold one truth to be self-evident: If one has not eaten rice on any given day, then one has not eaten." Rice has long been Liberia's number one staple, with consumption growing by 63 percent between 2008 and 2022, outstripping domestic production by more than 370,000 t in 2022.

But that's expected to change as the government looks to boost production by 150 percent. With funding from the European Union, AfricaRice and partners are complementing the government's efforts by implementing a four-year Seeds4Liberia project aimed at building resilient seed systems for rice and other commodities. The project will support the production of breeder, foundation, and certified seeds. It will also help government agencies, and the private sector acquire the needed capacity to build and sustain properly functioning seed value chains.

To ensure the production of seed, and consequently rice, that meets farmers' and consumers' needs and preferences, AfricaRice, in collaboration with the Central Agricultural Research Institute, is undertaking farmer and consumer surveys to determine the varieties of rice that should be introduced and promoted in the country. In addition to the surveys, focus groups with different rice-seed value chain actors have been conducted to comprehensively map the value chains (both formal and informal) and understand their governance, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The results of this work will be used not only to inform project interventions but strengthen CGIAR's and partners' rice market segmentation efforts and target product profile development.