The price of Gambia’s staple food may skyrocket from now towards the end of the year if news from Thailand, world largest rice exporter, is anything to go by.
Thailand has announced its intention to pay its rice-growers far above market rates and this is expected to push up prices for the food that the entire Gambia depends on and it is said to feed almost half of the world’s people.
The Gambia imports most of her food requirements, particularly rice, and produces not more than 30% of its rice requirement, which makes it very vulnerable to rise in prices and reduction in supplies from the international market as the country depends heavily on importation. The price of imported rice has quadrupled since 2002; and it continues to rise by the day.
The Gambia like many countries in Africa at large imports most of its rice from Thailand but it is reported that many rice importing countries are looking to other countries for supplies.
Efforts to get comment from the local rice importers proved futile but our source, who is an employee of one of the rice importers, said currently there is enough rice in stock in the country so there is no course for alarm and prices will be stable. Our source explained that Thailand is not the only country they import rice from, so there are alternative countries to import from.
