Rice in Nigeria may be sold for 40,000 naira by December!

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If Nigeria fails to start producing rice, by December 2016, the price of a bag of rice could be N40,000.

This is according to the Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri.

Lokpobiri, who made this known at a town hall meeting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, declared that Nigeria spends about twenty two billion dollars a year on importation of food into the country.

He noted that if the country does not start producing, by December 2016, a bag of rice could be sold for N40,000. This is owing to rise in the dollar!

The minister who explained that rice matures in three months urged Bayelsans to take the four farms they have seriously and begin to cultivate rice.

Reports say the federal government has four farms in the state and the average land in Bayelsa can grow rice.

He encouraged the state indegenes to take rice farrming seriously, stressing that 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.

He urged them to make agriculture a priority while calling on the Niger Delta Governors to turn away from oil and embrace agriculture, stating that 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, prioritised it.

He cited the example of Anambra State which for instance, was not owing salaries despite the fact that it does not have oil but was raking in money by merely exporting vegetables.