West Africa (WA) consumes more rice than other parts of the continent. Despite significant increases in rice production, WA still procures half of its rice needs through imports, and Asia (particularly Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, and India) is the major source of these imports. The 2008 rice crisis provided impetus to expanded rice production in WA, as countries sought to increase rice self-sufficiency rather than relying as heavily as they have had in the past on international trade to meet their food security goals. Recent changes in the Asian rice economy suggest a favorable environment for expansion of West African rice production, as area is shifting out of rice in Asia, productivity growth is slowing and labor costs are increasing. This study examines the evolving competitiveness of West African value chains vis-à-vis those of major Asian rice exporters, focusing on : (i) estimating the current competitiveness of irrigated rice systems in three major West African producers (Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Mali) using a Domestic Resource Cost (DRC) analysis and identifying the major factors that will influence the competitiveness of these systems in the future, and (ii) assessing the forces driving the evolution of rice price policies over the period 1980-2009 by conducting country-specific time-series analyses for selected major rice importing countries in WA (Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, and Nigeria) and their major imported rice suppliers in Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, India, and Pakistan) using an ARDL bounds-testing approach.The results show that large-scale irrigated production was financially profitable in 2011 in Senegal, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire, but only economically profitable the former two. This suggests that net subsidies to the rice sector since the 2008 world food price crisis have been an important contributor to expansion of production, at least in Côte d’Ivoire. Given its relatively high comparative advantage in producing and marketing rice to its capital city, Mali may even be able to position itself as a substantial exporter of rice to regional markets. However, the competitiveness of West African rice value chains will depend on factors both outside the countries’ control (such as world prices and exchange rates) and those they can influence (such as efficiency in production, processing and transport). The ability to achieve increases in system-wide efficiency requires adequate investment in agrifood system research and extension. The results further show that all countries in both WA and Asia are becoming more protective of their rice sectors. The Asian markets are better able to insulate their domestic market against changes in world prices than WA, except in landlocked Mali, which is the poorest among the WA focused countries. Also, production levels positively affect the protection path of the WA countries, except in Mali. This trend towards increasing protection reflects the desire of these countries, which have invested heavily in irrigation infrastructure and research and development for improving seed varieties, to protect those fixed investments, especially if there is pressure by those who control them to protect the rents that accrue to those assets. However, continuing to protect high-cost producers in order to stimulate production will put a great burden on consumers and may jeopardize poor urban consumers’ access to affordable rice supplies. Thus, there may be a need to put in place safety nets, broaden the consumption basket of staples, and open the market further, especially in Nigeria, by increasing investments in market infrastructure, including roads.
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