Kebbi Sate Governor, Atiku Bagudu on Tuesday said some foreign countries are waging economic warfare against Nigeria through rice importation at a cost cheaper than what is produced in the country.
He said some of them provide export subsidy which make it easy for rice produced in those countries to be exported at a price below the cost of production.
The governor was speaking in Abuja at a High-Level Rice conference organized by Agro Nigeria with the theme, “Self-Sufficiency: A Must”.
According to him, rice is the second-most distorted commodity in the world because countries provide production support and other subsidies that people hardly know the true cost of production.
“Those people who are importing or smuggling rice into Nigeria are carrying out economic warfare against us, because they are able to drop prices below the Nigerian locally-produced rice,” he said.
The governor charged all stakeholders to guard Nigeria’s interest saying this move is capable of scuttling the government’s effort to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production.
He said Nigerian rice is of greater quality than the imported rice, urging Nigerians to appreciate what is being produced in the country.
“Our farmers, millers, processors are doing a great job of giving us quality rice at fair prices and we need to support them. The more we support them, the more they will be able to deliver lower prices,” he said.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said Nigeria is moving towards self-sufficiency in rice production.
“In the past three years, rice production has seen exponential growth reaching 6.9 million metric tons in 2016 and 8.019 million metric tons in 2017,” he said.
This, he said, was achieved through improved access to finance, fertilizer, investment and focus on import substitution.
The minister disclosed that there presently 21 large integrated rice mills in Nigeria, while another 14 would soon come on board.
The Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Mr Aliyu Abdulhameed, said the firm has developed a business model to revamp moribund farm equipment and tractors across the country.
“NIRSAL will work with financial institutions, equipment manufacturers and service providers to create a system whereby those machines will be put back to life and provide services to farmers,” he said.
He added that this system would be able to bring back to service, up to 50,000 equipment and tractors that have broken down throughout the country.