There are indications that the price of local rice may go up
in Rivers State as rice farmers lament the high cost of production.
This is coming in a few weeks to the yuletide.
The Rivers State Chairman of the Rice Farmers Association of
Nigeria, Akandu Godwin, who gave the indication in Port Harcourt on Tuesday,
lamented over alleged neglect of rice farmers by the government.
He decried the lack of mechanized equipment for rice farming
which has made rice production very difficult.
According to him, “Rice farmers’ major constraint is lack of
support from the government. You know that in Rivers state we have a lot of
virgin lands and to start cultivating on these lands we need heavy equipment
like Caterpillar and Bulldozer.
“We also need tractors because we are now talking about
commercialisation of agriculture not peasant farming but one of the challenges
is that you hardly see these tractors.”
Asked whether the constraint may affect the cost of rice,
Akandu replied “it will, take for example, when people have hectares of land
and you want them to go on with manual labour, it will not be easy and they may
not give you enough of what you expect”.
Also speaking, the state Chairman of Rice Millers
Association Oshimini Micheal explained that they go as far Bayelsa and Ebonyi
States to mill their products which increases cost.”
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