From Magnus Eze, Abuja

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh has raised hopes that price of rice would soon crash in the market.

Presently, a 50-kilogramme of Nigerian rice sells for N17,000 but the minister assured that with government intervention, including negotiation with millers, the price would drop to about N13,000.

Ogbeh in an interaction with newsmen in Abuja also disclosed that efforts were on to explore how millers could procure paddy at lower price.

“We have this little challenge with the farmers, middlemen and end-users, which we are going to carefully try and resolve. It’s the same with rice. Why is Nigerian rice expensive? In July, 2015, one tonne of rice sold for N65,000. Last year June, one tonne of rice went to N150,000. So, the millers said as long as they were buying for N150,000 for a tonne of paddy and milling, they couldn’t sell for less than N17,000 for a bag of 50kg after milling.

“So, we called a meeting between millers and farmers and we are brokering an arrangement now where the price of paddy would drop reasonably to N120,000 per tonne of paddy. And the millers say that if they buy at N120,000, they can sell at N13,000 per 50kg.

“Now, I am begging the farmers and saying to them, I grew rice before and in fact, I was the first Nigerian to mill rice that was free of stones; at N130,000, it’s a bit too much; at N150,000 it’s really too much. In fact, at N120,000, they are making good profit.”

Elsewhere, the minister at Nigeria’s Agricultural Joint Sector Review in Abuja stated that government’s strategic interventions, especially through the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers’ programme had reduced rice import from 500,000MT in 2015 to 58,000MT last year.

He also named other notable reforms in the sector that would help reduce food price to include the restoration of the National Agricultural Land and Development Authority (NALDA) and the three universities of agriculture, back to the ministry as well as the provision of available sulphate to fertilizer blending plants.