The Senate Committee on Agriculture in Abuja said about two million metric tons of rice is currently being imported or smuggled into the country.
This is just as the committee said, in 2021, the production of milled rice in Nigeria was estimated to amount to five million metric tons.
Vice Chairman of the Committee, Muhammad Enagi, said this at the meeting with multi stakeholder group on rice council advocacy bill promotion.
The interactive meeting was organised by the United Nations Development Programme UNDP, Global Environment Facility GEF, in collaboration with Women Farmers Advancement Network WOFAN, among others.
Enagi stated that Nigeria’s rice rose from 3.7 million metric tons in 2017 to 5.0 metric tons in 2021.
