Rice May Go For N40,000 Per Bag By December—Minister

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Nigerians may buy a bag of rice for N40,000 Nigeria by December 2016 if the country fails to produce rice locally and stops its importation.

This was the assertion of Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Heineken Lokpobiri, when he spoke on Saturday at a town hall meeting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital.

The Minister noted that Nigeria spends about $22 billion a year on importation of food, saying something must be done quickly to stop this or else prices of food items may have to grow wings before the end of the year.

“For your information, we spend about $22 billion a year importing food into Nigeria. We know how many more dollars … and that is why you see the price of rice going up.

“Price of rice was N12,000 some months ago, but it is now about N26,000 and if we don’t start producing, by December it could be N40,000,” Mr Lokpobiri declared at the occasion.

The Minister said there was a projection that by 2050, Nigeria’s population would be 450 million, wondering what would happen then if the people could not feed themselves now.

According to him, South South Delta states were yet to give priority to agriculture the way the North-West states such as Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano as well as other states like Lagos, Ebonyi, Anambra, have prioritised it.

“Rice matures in three months. So, this is a wake-up call for Bayelsa people to take the four farms we have seriously.

“The federal government has four farms in the state in our records. The average land you see in Bayelsa can grow rice, so the colonial masters were not wrong in their assessment when they said Niger Delta could feed not only Nigeria but the entire West Africa sub-region.

“Unfortunately, agriculture till today, is not a priority of the Niger Delta as far as the state governments are concerned because of oil,” the Minister said.