Minister of State for Agriculture, Lokpobiri Heinekein says if Nigeria
fails to begin the process of producing its own rice, the cost of a bag
of rice may shoot up to about N40,000 by December this year. He said
this at a town hall meeting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state this yesterday
September 10th.
"For your information, we spend about $22bn a year importing food into
Nigeria. We know how many more dollars they bought and that is why you
see the price of rice going up. Price of rice was may be 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.
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 Nigerian but
also 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”he said
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