The Federal Government, on Monday, attributed the high cost of fertiliser in Nigeria to what it called a ‘global increase in production components’ of the product.
Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, gave the explanation in Abuja at the fifth edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s scorecard 2015-2017 series.
The scorecard series is organised by the ministry of information and culture, with the fifth edition featuring the minister of agriculture and rural development, Mohammad Abubakar.
Responding to a question on the high cost of fertiliser in the country, the minister of information and culture said it was a global issue.
He explained that from 2017 till date, the prices of three major raw materials for fertiliser production, that is, phosphate, potash and urea, had gone above the roof.
“In 2017, one metric tonne of phosphate cost $290. Today, the same metric costs $1,255.
“In 2017, one metric tonne of potash cost $256. Today, the same one metric ton costs $1,187.
“In 2017, one metric tonne of Urea was $300. Today, one metric tonne is $1,037.
“You can see that the prices of fertiliser components at the international market had gone up and this is not peculiar to Nigeria,’’ he said.
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The minister recalled that when the Buhari-led administration came on board in 2015, it launched the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative to address the perennial challenges faced in production, cost and distribution of the commodity.
He said the initiative yielded results, including the increase of fertiliser blending plants from four in 2015 when they assumed office to 72 presently.
The minister also recalled that before the prices of the fertiliser components started going up in 2017, the Buhari administration succeeded in bringing it down from N10,000 to N5,000.
According to him, but for the fertiliser initiative of the Federal Government, the cost would have been higher than what it is presently in the market.
The current market price of the commodity is between N20,000 and N25,000 for a bag of NPK or urea fertiliser.
Corroborating Mohammed, the minister of agriculture and rural development, attributed the increase in the prices of fertiliser and its production components globally to the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the Russia-Ukraine war.
He said Nigeria was not insulated from the global impacts and inflationary trend.
He assured that the Federal Government would continue to mitigate the impacts and implement policies and programmes that cushion the effects of high cost of fertiliser in the country.
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