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
