Juliana Taiwo, Ike Abonyi
18 April 2008
Ibadan — The Federal Government has entered into an agreement with the Vaswanni Group and the Thai Government, to grow rice locally, a pro-active step to avert the impending rice shortage in the country.
Dependable source disclosed that the agreement was arrived at, following advice of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, and is expected to kick-off before the year runs out, with government providing about 30 per cent equity, while investors will strictly handle the financing.
The source said the agreement would put paid to the anxieties associated with global scarcity of the food item, which has become a recurring decimal in the global market.
"The involvement of the Vaswanni Group in the local production of rice in Nigeria will be a big boost for the country. We would be sure that henceforth, the country would no longer experience scarcity of rice again. As a nation, we will be able to meet the growing demand for rice locally and that will in a way, assist government to tackle food scarcity," the source said.
Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources, Sayyadi Abba Ruma, in an interview, confirmed government's intention to focus on rice production, livestock and fisheries, to boost food security.
Ruma said currently, the country spends about $267 million annually on the importation of over two million metric tonnes of rice, while it produces only a mere 300 metric tonnes, representing 0.96 per cent of the global production.
The annual demand of the food item in the country is put at over seven million metric tonnes, with the available statistics, the country will need over three million metric tonnes to meet the annual shortfall.
The World Bank recently said it was ready to assist Nigeria in solving the problem of rising food prices. The Bank, through its Managing Director, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said it could offer some emergency loans to assuage the situation, as well as restructure some of its programmes to make additional resources available for food and to support agriculture.
Meanwhile, ahead of its 95th annual session scheduled for between April 19 and 24, the Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC) has lamented the growing incidence of acute scarcity of food crops and the danger it portents on the lives of ordinary Nigerians.
General Secretary of the NBC, Dr Ademola Ishola, at a press conference to herald the session in Ibadan, described as worrisome, the current high cost of food in the country and noted that the rising cost of foodstuffs prices would aggravate hunger and poverty in the country.Also, former National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Audu Ogbeh, yesterday in Abuja, painted a frightening picture of the impending food crisis in the world and how it would affect Nigeria, and declared that only an emergency Presidential action can help.
Ogbeh, who is one of the big time farmers in the country, told newsmen that unless Yar'Adua takes the bull by the horn and declare national emergency, the nation might be heading for a very serious food security problem.
"I wish to call on the President to see this as yet another emergency and summon a meeting of all stakeholders, especially National and state Assembly leaders, governors, ministers of agriculture, agricultural institutes, political leaders and farmers associations, to design a road map for solving this serious national problem," Ogbe said.
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I am so much fascinated about the decision of the Federal Government to form partnership with investors purposely to produce rice in Nigeria. That is very interesting! Like a previous commentator, I'll also want to ask, Why waiting till now. I know when I was young there used to be rice species like 'abere', 'ofada', etc. which are produced in large quantity in Nigeria but since the advent oil everything died a natural death. Instead of the previous governments encouraging the farmers and possibly helping to train them to be able to go into large production, they were more… [Read Full Text]
This is a positive step by the ministry of Agric. and Water Resources but the ministry needed not to have waited to be pushed into it by food scarcity. This step should have been taken a lot earlier but better late than never and, God forbid, it is hoped that the next administration change will not see a reversal of this progress assuming it successfully materializes. However, since Nigeria is naturally blessed with ferile lands with a possibility of having harvest twice in the year, and since rice is not the only food product common in the country,… [Read Full Text]