State governors yesterday pushed for the ban of rice importation by 2017 when the country would have developed sufficient capacity to produce enough to meet local consumption.
This was the position of some rice-producing states at a meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on a new policy on agriculture and food sustainability with a view to banning importation of rice into Nigeria in the next two years.
After the meeting which was also attended by other stakeholders and governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Governor Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State said with the population of the country, it was regrettable that it still had issues of food security.
it would be recalled that the federal government had recently removed rice from import restriction list.
He told journalists that the meeting discussed with relevant government agencies policies to be put in place to ensure self-sufficiency in rice production so as to make further importation unnecessary.
Yari said, “We discussed how we can boost rice production in Nigeria and start thinking about how we are going to put policy in place on how rice importation will be banned in the country.
“We have the potential, we have the human resources, we have the arable land to grow rice. In the next two years, we will not need to bring rice from outside Nigeria. We are going to ban it.
“It is only in Nigeria, a country of millions of people, that there is no food security. We discussed the policy with the relevant permanent secretaries and CBN governor.
“The policy is going to be in place and we gave our commitment that we are ready to support the government policy in ensuring that Nigeria becomes self-sufficient in food production in the next two years.
“Nigeria is currently a major importer of rice. Now, the political will is in place to stop it. We in about nine states are going to be seriously engaged in massive rice production.
“We are hoping that in the next two years, rice importation into Nigeria will be banned. We are committed and the political will is in place”.
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