The Federal Government of Nigeria through the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development has lauded farmers for playing a major role in the country’s exit from recession.
Chief Audu Ogbeh, at a news briefing in Abuja, expressed his gratitude to Nigerians and to both small and large-scale farmers for yielding the president’s call and returning to the farm.
He has appealed to farmers, middlemen and traders not to increase the prices of goods on their own part while the government would play its own part by not imposing price control.
To him, the recession exit of the country is still weak and they would need to work harder by increasing investment in agriculture, export and value addition because another danger could be ahead.
Stakeholders Clamour For Uniform Price of Product
In reaction to FG’s plans to stem the prices of local paddy which had increased from N65,000 in 2015 to N150,000 in 2016.
Chief Audu said the government was making arrangements with rice farmers to bring down the price from N150,000 per tonne to N120,000 and that the drop would make a bag to be sold for N13,000.
However, the rice farmers have argued that a bag of rice cannot be sold less than N17,000 in as much a metric tonne was sold to them for N150,000.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics in Nigeria, Nigeria’s non-oil sector grew with N261.92 billion earnings in the second quarter of the year from agric exports, 3.01 % in Q2 of 2017 as against 3.39% in Q1 and 4.53% in Q2 that was recorded in 2016.
