[Mhiz Rebecca]

The Federal Government on Monday declared that
the price of rice would start to fall from November
this year.
It stated that more Nigerians had returned to their
various farms, adding that at the next harvesting
season next month, the price of rice would start to
crash.
This came as the government said that the delay in
the approval of the 2016 budget had made it
impossible to implement the capital expenditure in
the agricultural sector.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development,
Chief Audu Ogbeh, said this while addressing
members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture
and Rural Development at the headquarters of the
ministry in Abuja.
Ogbeh, who stated that the government could not
be involved in the importation of rice as speculated
in some quarters, stressed that his ministry would
not encourage rice importation because it would be
detrimental to local production.
He said the Federal Government was against rice
smuggling and noted that the Seme border had
become a notorious route for the smuggling of
contraband products into the country.
“We will not encourage rice importation and there is
no way our ministry or government can be involved
in importing rice when we are working hard to be
self-sufficient in local production. By November
when the full-scale harvest starts, rice prices will
fall,” the minister said.
Early last month, the government had warned that
the price of rice might hit N40,000 a bag. It is
currently being sold around N20,000.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural
Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, said that
the $22bn annual food import bill had led to the
astronomical rise in the price of rice and other
commodities.
He stressed that if Nigerians failed to produce some
of the items being imported before December, the
price of rice could skyrocket to N40,000 a bag.
On why the ministry had yet to start implementing
its capital budget, Ogbeh said, “It is about now that
the capital expenditure is beginning. One of the
reasons why money is not circulating is that we
need to follow the due process on issues of
procurement, advertisement and others.”
According to him, his ministry has spent just
N882.58m, representing four per cent of the N21bn
budgeted for it in the 2016 Appropriation Act.
He also said, “You may be surprised to know that
only six to seven states in Nigeria are showing
enthusiasm in agriculture. Some by nature don’t
seem interested, while others just can’t connect
with whatever we are doing at the federal level.”
Ogbeh further stated that his ministry inherited
N67bn debt when the present administration came
on board, but added that N20bn had been paid to
agro-dealers and distributed 900 million oil palm
seedlings to farmers across the country.