Simply put, it's done by politicians to win votes in agricultural constituencies. But the World Trade Organization is chipping away at protectionism across the globe in order to reduce the distortions in trading relations between countries which protectionism breeds, and I applaud that. Now, to the specific issue of self-sufficiency in rice production for Liberia. I would be the first to agree that a worthwhile policy goal for the country is food security. But I don't believe that food security is synonymous with self-sufficiency in domestic production .
Domestic production is merely one option for attaining food security.
Another is through importation . Rice is not a scarce commodity. It is produced by many countries other than Liberia, and it is a commodity widely traded around the world. No one country exercises a monopoly over its production or distribution. 100 percent importation is one extreme.