President Muhammadu Buhari has assured Nigerians that the prices of food items, including rice will fall as the country launches 13 pyramids of rice paddy.
The president stated this at the official unveiling of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)-Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) rice paddy pyramids in Abuja yesterday.
He said urged Nigerians to exercise, saying the growing food production in the country, especially expansion in rice farming would eventually bring down prices of food, making it more affordable for all.
“When we assumed the reins of leadership of this country in 2015, the administration identified the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) as an essential policy instrument for achieving economic diversification through agriculture.”
“To achieve this, the ABP was designed to encourage investments in agriculture and empower smallholder farmers as drivers of transformation in the agricultural sector and as critical enablers of economic growth.
“I am indeed delighted that the ABP continues to receive commendations, since its introduction six years ago, as it has become one of the reference points in the administration’s agricultural revolution effort,” he said.
He said before he became president in 2015, Nigeria produced less than four metric tons of rice yearly adding that the situation was being reversed.
“Today rice production in Nigeria has increased to over 7.5 million metric tons annually. Prior to the introduction of ABP, the average production in Nigeria between 1999 to 2015 was less than four metric tons annually.
“I am aware that the bags of paddy will be moving straight from here to rice milling plants across Nigeria, which lead to the release of processed rice to the markets by the rice millers. The measure will aid our efforts at reducing the price of rice in Nigeria.
“Before this administration launched the ABP, there were only 15 standard rice mills in Nigeria. As at today, we have over 50 standard and integrated rice mills creating jobs and reducing unemployment. We expect additional significant output when two new mills are started in Lagos and Katsina,’’ he said.
Appraising his administration’s progress further, Buhari said: “The ABP has become one of the reference points in the administration’s agricultural revolution effort.
“Nigeria is making steady and assured progress towards self-sufficiency in food production, and it is my desired hope and expectation that other agricultural commodity associations that are yet to participate under the ABP will emulate the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria in supporting our administration’s drive for food self-sufficiency.
“The ABP speaks loudly in its giant strides as it has increased access to finance by our rural farmers, who before now were virtually excluded from the financial system.”
The president added that more Nigerians had taken to rice farming and agricultural business because of the large margins.
“These sky-high pyramids which we are gathered here to commission are part of our commitment at achieving national food security and economic diversification through home-grown policies targeted at securing food for all Nigerians.
“As a critical policy of the government, the ABP is expected to catalyse the agricultural productive base of the nation, which is a major part of our economic plan to uplift the economy, create jobs, reduce reliance on imported food and industrial raw materials, and conserve foreign exchange.
“In the implementation of the programme, adoption of high-yielding seedlings, quality inputs and best farming practices were essential features.
“For instance, the improved rice seedlings have helped to ensure our achievement of rice sufficiency, as they are disease-resistant and have an average yield of about 5 metric per hectare, compared with the traditional national average of 1.5 metric tonnes.
“This has resulted in bridging our rice consumption gap, a significant reduction in rice imports, and saved us foreign exchange,’’ he said.
Buhari commended the CBN for its effort at resuscitating the Nigerian Commodity Exchange following approval to do so.
“Let me also commend the Governor and staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria, as well as the leadership of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria for the successful delivery of these pyramids, which hopefully is just the first of many that will be unveiled this year across Nigeria,’’ Buhari said.
In his remarks, the CBN governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele who said Nigeria was on the path to food sufficiency.
“Beyond increasing our national output from about 5.4 million metric tons in 2015 to over 9 million metric tons in 2021, we have also significantly improved the productivity per hectare of the smallholder farmer from about 2.4 metric tons per ha in 2015 to between about 5 metric tons per ha in 2021.
“These expansions have not only made Nigeria the largest rice producer in Africa, but has also unlocked enormous private sector investment in the rice value chain as the number of Integrated Rice Mills grew astronomically from six in 2015 to over 50 in 2021 with many more in various stages of completion. Today, Nigeria’s milled rice matches the foreign rice in quality,” he said.
On government’s investment in rice cultivation, Emefiele said: “As at the end of December 2021, we have financed 4,489,786 farmers that cultivated 5,300,411 hectares across 21 commodities through 23 Participating Financial Institutions in the 36 States of the Federation and FCT.
“To bridge the demand-supply gap, which costs the country over $2 billion annual importation of wheat, Emefiele said the CBN has supervised the completion of the first major wet season wheat farming in Plateau State and planted over 100,000 hectares of wheat across 15 States in the 2021 dry season. This strategic intervention will herald progressive reduction in our wheat import bills over the coming years.”
Emefiele said the bank had deepened its stakeholders’ engagement to increase the arable land under cultivation and improve the productivity per hectare using improved seeds and agronomic practices.
He said the CBN “is currently exploring a new rice seed variety with the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) that has potential to deliver over 8 tons per/ha”.
He said the pilot programme will commence in the 2022 dry season.
“It has the potential of being the game changer for the rice sector in Nigeria. We will work with the various seed certification authorities and explore the possibility of patenting it for RIFAN as part of their legacies under the programme,” he added.
Also speaking, RIFAN president, Mr. Aminu Goronyo noted that the pyramids represent 0.05 per cent of the rice cultivated in the 2020 wet season while 99 percent is already at the production areas
He said the CBN had a mandate to sell the rice paddy to millers at a subsidized rate
He urged the federal government to appreciate and acknowledge critical stakeholders who made the event possible, such as farmers who have not been deterred by the insecurity and climate challenges.
“The small holder farmers despite the security challenges remain committed. Some of the farmers are gone and some in the hospital but they have not given up. They deserve appreciations.
“CBN financed a lot of farmers. In rice which is my sector, the CBN finance has created about three million jobs, especially for farmers and suppliers. About five million jobs are provided every year through this financing the apex bank’s financing of rice farmers has led to gainful employment of thousands of Nigerians across the value chain in six years,” he said.
Reacting to the rice pyramid launch, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said in statement by its spokesman, Mr. Debo Ologunagba, that Nigerians were already aware and pictures were available of how the government created fake pyramids of rice with sandbags and re-bagged rice stacked on pyramid shaped wooden structures as busted in an All Progressives Congress (APC)-controlled states in the southwest in 2018.
“Of course, there is nothing to celebrate in the APC pyramid of lies in Abuja. It is rather shameful that APC leaders are again ridiculing President Muhammadu Buhari by making him unveil pyramids of allegedly imported foreign rice which are re-bagged as locally produced, just to create an impression of a boost in local production under his watch.
“If indeed, there is a boost in local production of rice as the APC wants Nigerians to believe, how come the price of rice has not come down but continued to soar from about N8, 000 per bag which the PDP handed over to the APC in 2015, to about N30, 000 per bag today?”
Ologunagba added: “It is on record that the PDP turned the water land of various states of our nation into huge rice production hubs with farms and mills springing up across the country, leading to a boost in local production, drastic drop in imports and the celebrated affordable prices of food products under the PDP administration.
Painfully, the APC, with its incompetence, counter-productive policies and incurable corruption reversed all the gains made by the PDP in the agricultural sector and triggered a decline in production which resulted in the high cost of food in our country today.”
He said Nigerians would recall how the APC-led administration failed to protect the farmers and particularly how it blamed over 40 rice farmers killed by terrorists in Borno state instead of going after their assailants.
It maintained that the rice pyramid was, “APC pyramids,” stressing that it was nothing, “but huge signposts of their failures and irredeemable proclivity for lies, deception, beguilement and fake performance claims even in the face of unbearable high costs of food, 22.95 percent food inflation rate and our nation’s ranking as 98th out of 107 in Global Hunger Index.
“It is clear that with the 2023 elections in sight, the APC is desperate in pushing its stock-in-trade, pyramid of lies, propaganda, deceit and bogus claims with which they stole power in 2015. What the APC has not realised is that 2023 is not 2015. Nigerians have seen through APC deceits and not even these “pyramids of lies” can help the APC in 2023.”
