Liberia bans food exports to protect rice supply

Liberia bans food exports to protect rice supply

By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberia banned all food exports Monday, saying profiteers have been taking advantage of its cheap rice prices to truck the grain — already in short supply in Liberia — to neighboring countries to sell at higher prices.

It was the latest attempt by some of the region's poorest countries to fight a looming food crisis sparked by a worldwide surge in prices.

The high cost of rice has hit particularly hard in West Africa, where many countries count the grain as a staple even though much of it is imported. In war-recovering Liberia, the price surge has added yet another obstacle to resurrecting a devastated economy.

Liberia, which officials say imports about 70 percent of the rice it consumes annually, does not officially export any rice. But dealers from neighboring countries have been buying up sacks of rice on Liberia's market to resell in countries like Guinea where it is more expensive, Commerce Minister Frances Johnson Morris said.

"If you compare our price of rice with those in the sub-region, we have the lowest," Morris told reporters. He said a 50-kilogram sack of rice costs between $26 and $28 in Liberia, compared with up to $50 a sack in Guinea.

The government also said it is launching a campaign to urge Liberians to adjust their diet toward starches other that rice — which has seen the greatest increase in price. A number of major Asian rice producers have restricted exports to protect their own crops.

"There are other products here — yams, cassava, plantains. Let's eat them," Morris said.

Liberia also dropped all import duties on farming tools to help farmers to increase production. Liberia imported only 30 percent of its rice before descending into fighting in 1989, officials have said.

"If you get fertilizer you want to bring in, bring it in. If you get a power-tiller to prepare the soil, bring it in. You get seeds, bring them in," Agriculture Minister Chris Toe said.

Even if the rice is kept within Liberia's borders, supplies are getting tight. As of May 5, Liberia had 1.7 million sacks of rice in stock, enough to last until the end of August, Commerce Minister Morris said.

She emphasized that the ban applies to commercial foodstuffs, not to a few cups of rice carried across the border by a traveler. Liberian security forces recently stopped a truck carrying about 700 sacks of rice at the Guinea border, she said.

Liberia was ravaged by alternating civil war and coups between 1989 and 2003. The drawn-out conflict left about 200,000 people dead and displaced half the country's population of 3 million. The country — created to settle freed American slaves in 1847 — is still struggling to maintain a fragile peace with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080512/ap_on_re_af/liberia_food_crisis

Had no idea we were "exporting" food. :

Traveller wrote:

Had no idea we were "exporting" food. :

I didn't know either....we learn something new each day

8) Sorry to say, but da lie, we not exporting nothing of yet... Not even orange... People do send small quantity of palm oil to relatives in Europe and US... Or maybe they refering to thr rices that leave from here for Guinea and Free Town.

RossWorld wrote:

8) Sorry to say, but da lie, we not exporting nothing of yet... Not even orange... .........................

RossWorld wrote:

8) Sorry to say, but da lie, we not exporting nothing of yet... Not even orange... People do send small quantity of palm oil to relatives in Europe and US... Or maybe they refering to thr rices that leave from here for Guinea and Free Town.

i think maybe thats what they meant..
but you had me cracking up ross abotu the first part. you crazy

But I lie Candy? ehn da true. ok I just remember one thing we exporting one thing!!!! ..'Humanbeing".. Learned that close to 2000 people won this year DV.

- "Liberia banned all food exports Monday, saying profiteers have been taking advantage of its cheap rice prices to truck the grain — already in short supply in Liberia — to neighboring countries to sell at higher prices.

Cheap rice Prices...Is this the same country that was just splitting Spaghetti in two and eating it with palmbutter boasting about exporting cheap rice.....

RossWorld wrote:

ok I just remember one thing we exporting one thing!!!! ..'Humanbeing"..

RossWorld wrote:

But I lie Candy? ehn da true. ok I just remember one thing we exporting one thing!!!! ..'Humanbeing".. Learned that close to 2000 people won this year DV.

hahahha.. half of them wont make it.... the money, then the process is now kinda tough.. i hear the consulars denying like crazy

RossWorld wrote:

8) Sorry to say, but da lie, we not exporting nothing of yet... Not even orange... People do send small quantity of palm oil to relatives in Europe and US... Or maybe they refering to thr rices that leave from here for Guinea and Free Town.

RossWorld wrote:

But I lie Candy? ehn da true. ok I just remember one thing we exporting one thing!!!! ..'Humanbeing".. Learned that close to 2000 people won this year DV.

very funny Ross. but true...

Yes ohhh denying like crazy, and at times for know reason.. but God forbid.... you know wht I talking bout candy...let pray hard oh

candygirl wrote:

RossWorld wrote:

But I lie Candy? ehn da true. ok I just remember one thing we exporting one thing!!!! ..'Humanbeing".. Learned that close to 2000 people won this year DV.

hahahha.. half of them wont make it.... the money, then the process is now kinda tough.. i hear the consulars denying like crazy

Those who win the DV should start contacting friends and relatives ahead of time, so as to be on the save side. My advice to them will be that they should not rely on one persons but as many they can find. The reason is so that if one person let u down the other will be there. For example, i know of one of my friends who mother let him down last minute. She will not answer the boy call and the guy ended up staying in Liberia because it was late to contact somebody else...

So true Bellah, I know two friends who were turned down at the last minute. The people that promised to send the affidivate say they could't do it any more, but they waited for the last minute to say. I thing that was very wicked.