Nigerians Spend N 1 billion Every Day on Imported Rice – Agric Minister

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Akinwunmi Adesina has disclosed that Nigerians spend an average of N 1 billion daily on imported rice. Buttressing further the government technocrat also stated that  the country spends N 1.3 trillion annually on other food products like wheat, fish and sugar.

The minister reeled out the statistics at the inaugural session of the ongoing Ogun State Investor’s Forum currently holding in Abeokuta.

Mr. Adesina, however, stated that the Federal Government has begun to put into place measures that will see Nigeria become a net exporter of rice in the forseeable future.

One such measure is the Taraba Rice Project to which the Federal Government has committed $ 40 million. The project when it comes online, is expected to provide 40% of the Nation’s rice needs.

Currently Nigeria consumes about 5 million metric tones of rice per annum and that figure is expected to balloon to 36 million metric tones by 2015.

In addition to the Taraba Rice Project, the Federal Government is in consultations with the Chinese to set up rice mills in Niger, Ebonyi and Taraba States.

He said, “We need to encourage local production of rice; we are doing import substitution. Ofada and Abakaliki rice can compete with Thailand rice. We will improve on the quality.”

Also speaking on government incentives for the agricultural sector, he said government was proviing low interest loans for the private sector to get involved.