Ban of rice importation says Jonathan

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, Friday, hinted of his plan to ban rice importation in his budget speech which he will soon present to the National Assembly.
The United States Agency for International Development, USAID, in a report entitled “Nigeria rice value chain analysis,” had put rice importation at three million metric tonnes annually with a total value of N468 billion ($3 billion).
President Jonathan who spoke while receiving the report of the Northern Economic Summit organised by the Professor Jerry Gana led G_20 Group, said Nigeria can no longer rely on rice import most of which have been stored in silos for more than 10 years, to feed her population.
The G-20 Group made up of eminent politicians of Northern extraction had, March 17, 2011 organised the First Northern Economic Summit in Kaduna.
Jonathan said: “If you have exotic taste for foreign rice, then be prepared to fly your private jet abroad to buy it, as I will make a major pronouncement on rice in my budget speech to the National Assembly soon”.
The President dismissed foreign rice as lacking nutrient saying that after they have been preserved with so much chemicals for over 10 years, the commodity is again polished on its way to Africa.
He stated that Nigeria has adequate arable land that can be tilled to grow enough food for Nigerians and even feed the rest of Africa, insisting that his resolve to revolutionise the agriculture sector remains unshakeable.
He argued that for the poverty index of the agriculture_driven North Central Zone to be better than of the highly industrialised South_West Zone, is a testimony of the huge and great potentials that abound in the agriculture sector.