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By Emman Ovuakporie
President of Rice Producers Association of Nigeria, Aminu Mohammed Gonoyo has said the price of rice can stabilize at N5000 if only exchange rate can reverts to 2015 rate.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the association’s president said this while appearing on national television programme on Monday.
Gonoyo while responding on why a bag of rice now costs N30,000.00 against its earlier price of N7500 in 2015 despite loans obtained from Central Bank of Nigeriia, CBN Anchor loan given to rice producers said:
“What’s the exchange rate of the naira to the dollar in 2015, we buy farm implements, herbicide and other inputs in dollars and we add the cost to our products.
“A bag of rice can stabilize at N5,000 if only we can buy dollars with 2015 exchange rate because now it’s N500 to a dollar and it’s affecting the price of rice.
On allegation of selective release of loans to farmers by Anchor CBN, Gonoyo said those peddling such rumours are enemies of government because the process is easy let them com to us we will educate them on the procedure.
“Since 2015 this government has been giving us loans to produce rice and before 2015, CBN was releasing over N360bn annually for importation of rice only.
“As we speak now, I doubt whether CBN has released up to N200bn for the importation of rice into this country.