Rice production and marketing in Nigeria: Assessing regulatory agencies’ role in positioning made in Nigeria goods

Rice food system has been identified as a key block in global food security. However, demand for locally manufactured rice is still abysmally low due to broken food system leading to concerns for standards. Regulatory agencies have a lot of role to play in enhancing standards, quality and positioning the product before consumers. This is the crux of this study. Specifically, the study sought to ascertain the role of rice regulatory agencies in ensuring quality control and how it affects consumer patronage. In addition to identify best techniques to position local rice to consumers. Using data from 151 rice producers and marketers in Ebonyi state obtained from well-structured questionnaire and analyzed with descriptive statistics, the study observed that majority of the respondents are involved in marketing/supply and rice production while only 7.9% specialized on both rice production and marketing. Most of them have prior regulatory permit approval from Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), among other certifications. The result showed that regulatory agencies plays a vital role in ensuring quality control of made in Nigeria rice, but observed that consumers still lack trust in standards hence, the low patronage for local rice. Finance was mentioned as the major threat to rice production and marketing among other challenges. The study therefore, recommended that the government should set up programmes to enlighten rice producers and marketers on the potential threat of poor standards in their rice marketing. As such, they should be provided with the necessary and adequate standard machineries that will aid them in improving quality of our local rice, which will aid large production and marketing of made in Nigeria rice. This has implication on wider product acceptance and competitiveness.Keywords: made in Nigeria rice, NAFDAC, positioning, regulatory agencies, and Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON)