Nigeria Getting Closer To Achieving Self-Sufficiency In Rice
Nigeria will soon have so much rice cultivated locally that it would have no need to import a single grain.
After an aggressive campaign for rice farming in Nigeria, spearheaded by Buhari’s government over the past 2 years, rice has become abundant reducing Nigeria’s rice importation drastically.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed while quoting figures from the Thailand Rice Exporters Association, said rice importation from Thailand dropped from 644,131 Metric Tonnes to about 21,000 MT between September 2015 and September 2017.
Thailand supplies the bulk of the parboiled rice being imported into Nigeria.
“We are happy to tell Nigerians of a giant stride made by the Administration in the agriculture sector, specifically rice production: Nigeria is inching closer to achieving self-sufficiency in rice, due to the success recorded by the Administration in the local production of rice,” said Mohammed.
According to Mohammed some investors from Thailand have even shown interest in establishing rice milling plants in Nigeria.
“A few years ago, this would not have been possible since Nigeria was not considered a top rice producing country. Today, Nigeria is one of the largest producers of rice,” he said.
Meanwhile a food price survey across select markets in Lagos by Bounce News also revealed that the price of the commodity is on a downward spiral.
A 50kg bag of rice which sold for between 16,500 and 15,000 from September towards mid-October now goes for 14,000 naira.
However, it is still far from the 8,500 naira that the commodity sold before the end of 2015.
Nigeria will soon have so much rice cultivated locally that it would have no need to import a single grain.
After an aggressive campaign for rice farming in Nigeria, spearheaded by Buhari’s government over the past 2 years, rice has become abundant reducing Nigeria’s rice importation drastically.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed while quoting figures from the Thailand Rice Exporters Association, said rice importation from Thailand dropped from 644,131 Metric Tonnes to about 21,000 MT between September 2015 and September 2017.
Thailand supplies the bulk of the parboiled rice being imported into Nigeria.
“We are happy to tell Nigerians of a giant stride made by the Administration in the agriculture sector, specifically rice production: Nigeria is inching closer to achieving self-sufficiency in rice, due to the success recorded by the Administration in the local production of rice,” said Mohammed.
According to Mohammed some investors from Thailand have even shown interest in establishing rice milling plants in Nigeria.
“A few years ago, this would not have been possible since Nigeria was not considered a top rice producing country. Today, Nigeria is one of the largest producers of rice,” he said.
Meanwhile a food price survey across select markets in Lagos by Bounce News also revealed that the price of the commodity is on a downward spiral.
A 50kg bag of rice which sold for between 16,500 and 15,000 from September towards mid-October now goes for 14,000 naira.
However, it is still far from the 8,500 naira that the commodity sold before the end of 2015.
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