- 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.
- 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.
- “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. 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.
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