Table 2.
State of rice value chain upgrading in 15 countries in West Africa, 2009–2019.
| Country | Number of investments that were operational in 2019 | Aggregate upgraded milling capacity (tons per hour) | Origin of investments | Vertical coordination |
Exposure to imports |
Average annual milled rice production, 2009–2019 (103 tons) | Source | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contract farming (number of farmers) | Share of contracted farmers (%) | Vertical integration (hectares) | Share of area under vertical integration (%) | Import barriersa | 2008 import bill (106 US$)b | ||||||
| Group 1: Dynamic rice value chain upgrading | |||||||||||
| Nigeria | 24 industrial mills | 177 | FDI, DPI | 3000 | 0.61 | 20,400 | 0.69 | None | 772 | 3736 | c,d,e |
| Senegal | 15 industrial and semi-industrial mills | 60 | FDI, DPI | 3500 | 1.85 | 3590 | 1.86 | None | 645 | 508 | c,f |
| Group 2: Moderate rice value chain upgrading | |||||||||||
| Ghana | 1 industrial mill, 3 semi-industrial mills | 26 | FDI, DPI | 4000 | 9.09 | 750 | 0.34 | None | 216 | 359 | c,g,h,i |
| Mali | 4 industrial mills | 20 | FDI, DPI | – | – | 3200 | 0.44 | Physical, cultural | 66 | 1442 | j,k |
| Côte d’Ivoire | 2 industrial mills, 1 semi-industrial mill | 15 | PI, DPI | 10 (experimental) | 0.00 | – | – | Cultural | 472 | 1111 | l |
| Burkina Faso | 1 industrial mill, 1 semi-industrial mill | 7 | DPI | 140 | 0.08 | – | – | Physical | 56 | 204 | m,n,o,p |
| Liberia | 2 semi-industrial mills | 4 | DPI, PI | – | – | – | – | None | 75 | 172 | c,s |
| Niger | 2 semi-industrial mills | 4 | PI | – | – | – | – | Physical | 126 | 61 | p,q,r |
| Sierra Leone | 1 semi-industrial mill | 2 | DPI | – | – | 1300 | 0.21 | Cultural | 85 | 702 | c |
| Benin | 17 ESOP | – | DPI | 140 | 0.18 | – | – | None | 185 | 142 | c,t,u,v |
| Togo | 15 ESOP | – | DPI | 100 | 0.24 | – | – | None | 9.3 | 90 | c;t,v |
| Group 3: No rice value chain upgrading | |||||||||||
| Guinea | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | Cultural | 153 | 1300 | c |
| Mauritania | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | None | 77 | 129 | c |
| The Gambia | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | Cultural | 28 | 35 | c |
| Guinea-Bissau | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | Cultural | 10 | 108 | c |
| West Africa | 57 upgraded units | 315 | 10,890 | 0.26 | 29,240 | 0.39 | 2975.3 | 10,098 | |||
Notes: The evidence of investments in semi-industrial and industrial technologies and implementation of vertical coordination needs to be interpreted as being relative to the baseline, which consists of traditional millers purchasing paddy from traders on spot markets or interlinked transactions. Only operating units and installed over the last decade are reported; unfinished investments or units that had terminated their operations were not considered as evidence of upgrading. Semi-industrial mills can theoretically process between two and three tons of paddy per hour and perform at least four quality upgrading functions. Industrial mills can theoretically process between three and five tons of paddy per hour and perform at least six quality upgrading functions. Traditional mills process under two tons of paddy per hour. Entreprises de Services et Organizations de Producteurs (ESOPs) are traditional processing units in which farmers have the opportunity to gradually become shareholders. FDI: foreign direct investment; DPI: domestic private investment; PI: public investment. Dashes indicate absence of evidence of operating upgraded technologies or vertical coordination.
Sources: aDemont (2013), Demont and Ndour (2015) and Demont et al. (2017); bIRRI (2019); cFFI and GAIN (2017); dAwotide et al. (2015); eHathie (2016); fSoullier and Moustier (2019); gAyeduvor (2018); hBidzakin et al. (2018); iBannor et al. (2017); jCoulibaly and Havard (2015); kCoulibaly and Soullier (2020); l(Soullier et al., 2019); mBila (2015); nTapsoba (2016); o(Sirdey et al., 2018); pVECO (2014); q (Fall 2016); rRiceHub (2016); sOxfam (2018); tETD (2016); uMaertens and Vande Velde (2017); vAdabe et al. (2019).