Kebbi flooding caused Lake Rice scarcity, says Lagos commissioner

* Lagos will soon unveil five years plan

The Lagos state Commissioner for Agriculture, Hon. Abisola Olusanya has disclosed that Lake Rice, a product of the collaboration between Lagos state and Kebbi state, has become scarce, of recent because of the flooding being experienced in Kebbi and some other states in the country.

Hon. Abisola Olusanya said this during a call in Television programme ‘‘your view’’ anchored by Morayo Afolabi Brown of Continental Television (TVC) today, 9^th September, 2020.  

She explained that the project which involves production of paddy by Kebbi farmers and processing and bagging in the state, is later transported to Lagos for distribution and sales to the public, adding “now we are all aware that the Lake Rice has been in existence since 2015 and the idea of Lake Rice was to crash the price through competitive market demand.  Right now Lake Rice is no longer available in the market and that is because the Kebbi rice is currently experiencing challenges as a result of flood in the state, which means getting paddy from Kebbi state will be challenging, this year and next year, but it doesn’t mean that we are not trying to get rice for this year towards the Christmas, and there are already plans towards that.”

The commissioner, who revealed that the state had developed a five-year roadmap strategy for agriculture” which the governor is very happy about” said the state would be unveiling the programme to the public very soon and that the Imota rice processing mill plant would be completed by December 2020 despite slow installation occasioned by Covid-19 pandemic.

 While admitting that there were challenges for farmers generally in the country, she said the state was engaging in infrastructural development to boost agriculture adding that ‘’a lot of interventions have gone to poultry farmers. Just about two month ago we roll out agriculture value chains empowerment programme where over 2,743 producers and distributors of feeds were empowered free of charge by Lagos state Government and it is still an ongoing thing in a continuous bases as our coconut farmers are given seedlings.

Meanwhile about 28 states including Sokoto, Kebbi and others have been devastated this year where thousands of farm lands were washed away by flood, with farmers calling for FG’s palliative to mitigate losses.