The price of rice may go up in the last quarter of this year over Ebola outbreak in West Africa as exporters from Bangkok in Thailand are finding it difficult to ship the essential commodity to West African ports of Lagos Tincan, Lome Tema and Abidjan. Thailand Government has declared that exporters should halt their sales to the Ebola-affected countries in the region to avoid the spread of the dreaded disease.

Nigeria and some African countries are the major markets for Thailand’s rice, but the industry is finding it difficult to meet demand. It was learnt that Africa consumes nine million tons of rice annually and Nigeria consumes one third of African imports. So far this year, Thailand has shipped over 3.3 million tons of rice to Africa, a pace far ahead of last year’s total shipments of 3.75 million tons.

The top destinations, in terms of volume, are Nigeria Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, Cameroon and Mozambique in that order. But this year it is feared that the country may not meet its demand as production stands at 3.1 metric tons.

Already the United States Department of Agriculture has express doubts in its 2014 forecast that rice imports to Nigeria may likely to remain at 2013 levels of around 2.9 million tons to meet an annual consumption demand of around 6 million tons. But the anti-import measures such as high duties, levies and have worked against the required demand.

Miffed by the recent outbreak of Ebola, the President of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, Vichai Sriprasert, operators of dry bulk vessels cannot find crews to man their ships because of fears of possibly contracting the deadly Ebola virus. He said: “Merchants in West Africa are trying to build up stocks to meet the requirements during Christmas sales.

They have to buy now in order to have enough stock. But if we cannot find enough vessels to go there this would jeopardise the whole trade situation.” Not being able to ship rice quickly during this peak season is creating a bottleneck, with Thai exporters’ warehouses already filled. Vichai said that is creating a chain reaction in the rice industry all the way back to the farmers.

He explained: “We cannot release the rice out of the warehouse and also cannot buy rice from the millers. And the millers’ warehouses are also filled up. If they cannot sell to exporters they also cannot buy from the farmers. The price of rice from the farmer also has to drop because not too many people can afford to buy. There’s no place to keep the stock.”

Meanwhile, ships awaiting berth at Apapa have declined to 64 in August from 68 in July, the Financial Derivatives Company Limited has said. The company said that the number of active rigs have increased to 15 in July from nine rigs in June. The company in its monthly economic news and views at Lagos Business School Executive Breakfast Meeting noted that while the ships awaiting berth are to remain at an average of 62, the number of rigs may likely to decline due to increased activities of pipeline vandals.