Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has said that the administration of fomer president, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, should be blamed for the importation of rice into the country.
He said the country would have been self sufficient in rice production if the then government had not scuttled the agricultural revolution initiated by his regime in the military era.
Obasanjo said this at the unveiling of Okun Rice held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta,on Thursday, blaming the development on inconsistency in governement policies
He explained that the setting up of a committee on importation of rice by the Shagari -led government forced the local rice producers in the country to abandoned rice cultivation as imported rice arrived the country.
The former president commended the brain behind the rice production, Biodun Onalaja, for the ray of hope in boosting rice production to achieve food suffiency.
He said, “One of our problems in this country is inconsistency in policy.
In 1979, we were getting to a place where we would be self sufficient in rice production, but then a new administration came and set up a Presidential Committee on rice importation instead of a Presidential Committee on Exportation of rice.
“In no time, when the imported rice started a arriving, those farmers who were cultivating rice gave up.
” Today I commend Hyst Global Business Limited and the chairman, Mr. Biodun Onalaja, for his doggedness, persistence, and stubbornness. It is not easy to succeed here as a farmer. But I want to say Onalaja is a success story, because despite the odds he never gave up.”
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