{"id":73432,"date":"2025-08-17T20:18:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=73432"},"modified":"2025-08-17T20:18:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:18:37","slug":"rice-farmers-blame-cartel-middlemen-for-soaring-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/08\/17\/rice-farmers-blame-cartel-middlemen-for-soaring-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Rice Farmers Blame Cartel, Middlemen for Soaring Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rice farmers\u2019 associations have blamed a cartel of middlemen and unscrupulous farmers for the persistent hike in rice prices across Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>Vice-Chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr. Sakin Agbayewa, said despite government interventions, a powerful cartel continues to manipulate the market.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that a temporary government waiver on rice imports briefly reduced prices, but once the waiver expired, the cartel allegedly hoarded foreign rice to create artificial scarcity.<\/p>\n<p>Agbayewa further accused some local farmers of exploiting the situation by repackaging Nigerian rice in foreign bags and selling them at inflated prices, taking advantage of consumers\u2019 preference for imported brands.<\/p>\n<p>Echoing the concern, Mr. Raphael Hunsa, Chairman of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Lagos State chapter, lamented that government interventions rarely reach genuine farmers.<\/p>\n<p>He urged authorities to engage directly with local farmers in designing policies and support programs, warning that without proper consultation, rice prices will continue to spiral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Anifowoshe Oladipupo Rice farmers\u2019 associations have blamed a cartel of middlemen and unscrupulous farmers for the persistent hike in rice prices across Nigeria. Vice-Chairman of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr. Sakin Agbayewa, said despite government interventions, a powerful cartel continues to manipulate the market. He explained that a temporary government waiver [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":73433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1740,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73434,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73432\/revisions\/73434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}