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.
Our problem is simple: LEADERSHIP! Everywhere in the world, governments provide incentives for its citizens to grow the economy. We cannot go it alone. Owning a garden at your backyard is not the same with large scale farming, which is in hectares. It involves capital, machinery, constant energy, staff wages/salary, among other inputs. How many Nigerians per capita have received leverage from government. Our Agric Development Banks are just bearing the names. While certain countries are moving towards negative bank interest, ours is approaching three digits. I beg take your campaign to the dogs and stop using us a sounding board to make Buhari believe you are his trusted flunky.
ReplyDeleteThis is another unguided utterance by this careless and care free buhari led administration. This alone is capable of fixing the price of a bag of rice to 40k..... Like the carelessly fix forex and pms.....
ReplyDelete