Rice production has been predicted to fall by seven per cent within the marketing year, starting from October to September 2023 following insecurity and recent flooding that has eroded rice-growing areas.
This is according to the United States Agriculture Department in its latest ‘Nigeria grain and feed update’.
According to USDA, households have started to see a substantial increase in the average price of bags of rice, rising to about 50 per cent, in some cases to N45,000 from N31,000.
It said production aws expected to decline to 7.8 million metric tons from 8.4 million tons in 2021-2022
