COMPETITIVENESS IN RICE PRODUCTION IN OSUN STATE, NIGERIA: THE POLICY ANALYSIS MATRIX APPROACH

Abstract

This study assessed the competitiveness of rice productionunder different varietal technologies in Osun State.A multistage sampling technique was adopted to select the respondentsfor the study. Both primary and secondary data, includingprices of inputs and outputs, rice yields, import tariff,transportation cost, port loading and unloading charges andofficial exchange rate, foreign exchange premium, etc., werecollected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and thePolicy Analysis Matrix (PAM) approach. The results revealedthat effective protection coefficients (EPC) for the three identifiedrice varieties (Local, FARO53 and FARO54) were 0.89,0.98 and 0.97, respectively. The Domestic Resource Cost(DRC) was 0.84, 0.48 and 0.48; the Nominal Protection Coefficient(NPC) on tradable inputs and outputs was 0.89, 0.98and 0.97; while the Social Cost Benefit (SCB) was 0.85, 0.52and 0.52 for the three varietal technologies, respectively. Theresults indicate that rice farmers using the three varieties havea comparative advantage (DRC < 1) in rice production in thestudy area, and the two improved varieties provided a greatercompetitiveness. The study concluded that Osun State hasa comparative advantage in rice production under the importparity prices regime which, however, is not true under the assumptionsof export parity.