(By Femi Folaranmi – YENAGOA)
Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development Senator Heineken Lokpobiri has warned that the rising price of rice could get worse before December if Nigerian farmers refused to engage in rice farming.
Lokpobiri, who stated this while answering questions from a cross section of Bayelsans over the weekend in Yenagoa, said going by current projections a bag of rice may rise to N40, 000 per bag if there is no local production of rice.
According to him, the data available showed that Nigeria spends about $22 billion a year on importation of food into the country, adding that continuous importation of food would endanger the economy.
He 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.
“For your information, we spend about $22 billion 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 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 wakeup 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.”
The Minister said the states in the Niger Delta had 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, prioritized it.