FG targets 8m tonnes of rice in 2018 wet season

The Federal Government says it is targeting the production of eight million tonnes of paddy by rice farmers across the country in the 2018 wet season. Chief Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said this in Abuja while speaking to newsmen on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in the past three […]

The Federal Government says it is targeting the production of eight million tonnes of paddy by rice farmers across the country in the 2018 wet season.

Chief Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said this in Abuja while speaking to newsmen on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in the past three years.

The minister said the country was currently producing between 5.8 million and six million tonnes of paddy, adding that it was targeting the production of nine million tonnes by 2019.

He said the rice revolution was the most outstanding achievement recorded in the Buhari administration’s economic diversification efforts in three years.

Ogbeh said the feats in the rice revolution were attained through the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The minister, who noted that in the past Nigeria spent over five million US dollars a day on rice importation, said rice importation had reduced by 95 per cent from December 2015 till date.