SEPTEMBER 14, 202010:50 AM UPDATED
Nigeria reels from twin crises that threaten food availability
By Libby George
ABUJA (Reuters) - Mal Shehu Ladan took a boat across what was, until this month, a growing rice paddy. Now, like thousands of hectares of rice in Nigeria’s Kebbi state, it is under water.
“Almost all my farm has been flooded. I didn’t harvest any rice,” Ladan told Reuters. “It’s going to be devastating.”
Floods early this month across northwest Nigeria destroyed 90% of the 2 million tons that Kebbi state officials expected to harvest this autumn, the head of the state branch of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria told Reuters. The loss amounts to some 20% of the rice Nigeria grew last year, and the waters are still rising.
