Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, says the huge progress so far recorded in the agricultural sector, especially in the local production of rice, is collapsing the economies of six countries that hitherto relied heavily on the importation of rice to Nigeria.

The minister said this when he appeared as a guest on Focus Nigeria, a current affairs program on Africa Independent Television (AIT), on Wednesday.

Answering a question on why locally produced rice costs more than imported rice, he noted that countries like India and Thailand, that are renowned for the production of rice, provide subsidies for their farmers, consequently reducing the landing cost in Nigeria.

“Nigeria is a dumping ground for foreign rice, and these countries actually subsidize their farmers,” Mohammed said.

“So the landing cost of a bag of rice from India to Nigeria is cheaper than the locally-produced rice because the government there wants to dump it and they are subsidizing the farmers.

“And this is what we are working at also, to give subsidies to farmers, not in terms of money but in terms of probably subsidizing their transportation, which we are working on.

“But the truth of the matter is that the rice they are bringing, some of them are 10 years old. They are simply re-bagged.

“But the economies of six countries are collapsing, because of the measures we have put in place.Yes it is true that a lot of rice is still being smuggled, but officially, we’ve been able to cut importation from 580,000 (metric tonnes) to 58,000 in one year.”

He maintained that the Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government had recorded tremendous success in the three major items it campaigned on: economic revival, security/anti-terrorism campaign and war against corruption.