The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator
Heineken Lokpobiri, has said that Nigeria spends about $22bn a year on
importation of food.
Lokpobiri made this known on Saturday at a town hall meeting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
He
said the development had led to the astronomical rise in price of rice
and other commodities, stressing that if Nigerians failed to produce
some of the items being imported, before December the price of rice
would skyrocket to N40,000 a bag.
He said there was a projection
that by 2050, Nigeria’s population would be 450 million, wondering what
would happen then if the people could not feed themselves now.
Lokpobiri
said, “For your information, we spend about $22bn a year importing food
into Nigeria. We know how many more dollars … and that is why you see
the price of rice going up.
“Price of rice was 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 Nigeria but 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 said the states in the Niger Delta
had yet to give priority to agriculture the way the North-West states
such as Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano as well as other states like Lagos, Ebonyi,
Anambra, have prioritised it.
He said Anambra State for instance,
was not owing salaries despite the fact that it does not have oil but
raking in money by exporting vegetables.