Yuletide: Ogoja rice producer set to crash price to N14,000/50kg bag

• Says 1,000 hectares ready for harvest

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Santuscom Agro-Hub Investment Nigeria Limited, producers of Ogoja Rice, Chief Paul Santus, on Tuesday, disclosed plans to crash 50-kilogram bag of its  Ogoja Rice brand to N14,000 ahead of the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Santus made the disclosure while speaking on the effort made by his company to take up the challenge posed by closure of land borders, which he said his company has scaled up production of Ogoja Rice brand locally produced in O’akwa-Okpoma, Yala Local Government Area of Cross River State.

According to him, Nigerians should not panic ahead of the festive period because all has been put in place to meet their demands as against the backdrop of skyrocketing price of the commodity in markets across the country, especially after the closure of borders by the government.

It would be recalled that prices of 50kg of rice have risen to as much as N18,000 to N22,000 following the recent closure of land borders by the Federal Government.

He said: “We in Santuscom Agro-hub Investment Nigeria Limited, producers of the popular Ogoja Rice brand is concerned with the skyrocketing price of rice after the closure of land borders by the federal government.

“We want Nigerians to understand the action by the government and notwithstanding we want to assure Nigerians that as a company we will do everything possible before the Christmas and New Year celebrations to crash the prevailing and current market price of rice as we will be selling at N14, 000 per 50 kilogram bag of rice anytime from now.

“We will soon flood the market with the popular #OgojaRice which will in turn drastically reduce the current prevailing price in the market.

“Everything is ready for us to commence serious production of high quality and stone-free Ogoja Rice that would be very affordable and accessible by consumers in any part of Nigeria.”

Meanwhile, he said there is over 1, 000 hectares of rice farm ready to be harvested soon to add to the current production of the commodity.

“We have the capacity to crash the price because of we have huge tonnes of paddy rice and high milling capacity from the rice mills we run.

“The company is set to crash price of rice with the 1,000 hectares of rice farm that is ready for harvest anytime from now in O’akwa in Okpoma, Yala Local Government Area of Cross River State. We will begin production in earnest,” he added.