Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of State for
Agriculture and Rural Development, has warned that before December the price of rice would skyrocket to N40,000 a bag, if Nigerians failed to
produce some of the items being imported.
Lokpobiri said that Nigeria spends about $22 billion a year
on importation of food. He said the development had led to the astronomical
rise in price of rice and other commodities.
The minister said that 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.
Lokpobiri said, "For your information, we spend about
$22billion 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.
"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."
He 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, have prioritised it.
He said Anambra State for instance, was not owing salaries
despite the fact that it does not have oil but raking in money by exporting
vegetables.
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