Despite government interventions to boost rice production, and regulate prices, price of rice has been heading north in Nigeria.
- The price of a 50kg bag of locally produced rice shot up by about 92 per cent between January 2016 and December 2021 according to a recent market survey.
Despite government interventions to boost rice production, and regulate prices, the price of rice has been heading north in Nigeria. The price of a 50kg bag of locally produced rice shot up by about 92 per cent between January 2016 and December 2021 according to a recent market survey. The average cost of a 50kg bag of rice currently in Abuja and Lagos states is N 25,000, compared to N13,000 in 2016 despite the interventions of the government through the apex monetary authority, the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN), to regulate the price of rice in the country.
To control the rising prices, recently, CBN launched13 mega rice pyramids in Abuja, a part of the CBN’s rice revolution scheme introduced by its Anchor Borrower’s Programme (ABP), a low-interest loan scheme launched in November 2015.Through the programme, CBN extends concessionary loans to farmers with a five per cent interest rate disbursed through Deposit Money Banks, development finance institutions, and microfinance banks. The Programme aims at creating economic linkage between smallholders and reputable large-scale processors which will lead to increased agricultural output and better capacity utilisation of agricultural firms. Farmers of rice, wheat and maize, cotton, roots and tubers, sugarcane, tree crops, legumes, tomato and livestock are expected to benefit from this programme.
