Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has raised an alarm which must never be ignored. He warned that Nigeria must start producing rice now otherwise the price could hit N40,000 per bag in December. He raised the red flag at the weekend during a town hall meeting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, his home state. Town hall meetings have been adopted by the Federal Government to raise national consciousness in agriculture as a way of diversifying the nation’s economy.

He said: “For your information, we spend about $22bn a year importing food into Nigeria. We know how many more dollars they bought 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 Nigerian but also 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 charged the Niger Delta region 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 had done.