The Federal Government says only public servants with duly registered National Identification Numbers, NIN, will be allowed to purchase bag of rice at N40,000.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari made this known while flagging off the sale of 30,000 metric tonnes of milled rice, adding that the move was to curtail racketeering.

Kyari, who said that the intervention will be sold strictly one man to one bag or one woman to one bag, also stated that the move is part of efforts to crash the prices of food in Nigerian markets.

According to him, the rice, which is to be sold at a flat rate of N40,000 naira only for 50kg is the federal government intervention for the sales of subsidised milled rice to ameliorate the prevailing food crises in Nigeria.

“This food intervention can be said to be timely considering the times and challenges we are in as citizens of this great nation,” he said.

As one of the numerous efforts of the present administration to cushion the effect of high cost of food commodities, kindly join me to applaud the immense efforts of the present administration such as the release of 42,000MT of Assorted Food Commodities (AFC) to vulnerable and the 30,000MT of milled rice which is being flagged-off for sales to Nigerians today 5th September, 2024,” he said.

The minister said COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war, climate change and other localized factors/challenges are the reasons for the high cost of food prices.