And farmers are trying to adapt. Donn Teske says he will be
stocking fewer cattle next year and trying to plant crops with
less tillage to preserve the moisture. Some countries are also
taking a longer term approach to reducing their reliance on food
imports by looking for alternative staple crops. Nigeria has a
population of 170 million and according to Debisi Araba, the
special adviser to Nigeria's agriculture minister, the country
spends 635 billion naira ($4 billion) annually on wheat and an
astonishing one billion naira ($6.3 million) each day on rice
imports. But Nigeria has a plan to combat this huge cost. Araba
said Nigeria produces 34 million tons of the starchy root crop
cassava every year and this can be mixed with wheat flour. He
said Nigeria was planning to replace 40 percent of wheat flour
with cassava and was ramping up production of rice. Araba
believes the country will be able to produce 2.1 million tons of
rice by 2015, first becoming self sufficient, and then able to
export. For other farme