Audu Ogbeh,the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, on Tuesday revealed that plans where on the way to drop the price of fertilizer to N5000 as it targets to start blending of fertilizer in the country soon.
The Minister also said that currently, the nation is planning to increase its local production to about 700,000 to 800,000 tons per annum.
Briefing newsmen in Abuja, Ogbeh said that the country is expecting the first shipment of phosphate from Morocco on Friday 27th January this year.
BusinessDay findings revealed that currently, the price of fertiliser fluctuates between N9500 to N10,000 per bag across the country.
This increase in price of fertiliser as a result of scarcity of forex, has further made the prices of food stuffs in the market to sky rocket.
According to Ogbeh, “We expect the first ship of phosphate from Morocco to arrive on Friday in Lagos, then the blending will begin. We are bringing the price of fertilizer down to N5000″.
“Once the blending starts in the course of the negotiation, the price of fertilizer will fall. The only thing we want to ensure is that every blender in the country who have capacity even though if the machines are not enough, we are going to support to put their machines in order, so the blending takes place almost everywhere in the country so that farmers can now have access to fertiliser at the lowest price.
“If we can bring down the price of fertilizer to N5000, which is our ambition, food production will become easier and farmers will enhance their profit”.
Speaking on the capacity expected, Ogbeh said “the target we have is just about 700,000 to 800,000 tons of fertilizer per annum, but the problem is that we don’t only satisfy Nigeria, our neighbours always come in and take a bit, we can’t deny them entirely but we can satisfy our need first”.
