Follow Us on Google
Notwithstanding the commencement of the harvest season, prices of foodstuffs have gone up about 40 to 60 per cent in Kano, Sokoto and Kaduna states, a market survey by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has revealed.
However, in Katsina and Kebbi states, prices of foodstuffs were slightly down.
Traders, farmers and other stakeholders in the northern states, also gave reasons for the nationwide hike in price of onion which has gone up by between 200 percent and 300 per cent.
In Kano, a standard measure known as “mudu”, of red beans is now sold between N900 and N1,000 up from N750 in October, while white beans is sold for N800 and N950, from the previous prices of N600 and N700.
A bag of beans sold between N30,000 and N35,000 in October is now N37,000.
Similarly, a mudu of groundnut which was sold for N800 is now N900 while a bag is N35,000 up from its former price of N33,500.
A mudu of imported rice is now N1,500 up from the October price of N1,400 while a 50 kg bag is now N25,000 from the previous N24,000.
The survey also revealed that a mudu of local rice which was sold for N1,000 is now N1,100 while a 100kg bag is N36,000 up from N34,500.
Similarly, a bag of millet is N15,500 up from N15,000 while a bag of soya beans which was sold for N15,000 is now N16,000.
A bag of red maize is sold for N16,000 from the October price of N15,000 while a bag of white maize is N15,000 from the old price of N14,000.
A bag of guinea corn which was sold for N24,000 is now N25,000. The increase in the prices of foodstuffs in Kano also affected condiments, noodles and vegetables.
A basket of tomato is now sold for N10,500 as against N7,500 in October while price of a bag of pepper has increased 100 per cent from N9,000 to N18,000.
Onion is the worst hit with the price now up by 200 per cent. A bag of old onion, from 2019 harvest, which was previously sold for N18,000 now costs N57,000 while a bag of newly harvested onion costs between N38,000 and N40,000. Some of the consumers expressed surprise at the sudden rise in the price of onion.
Idi Salihu, an onion seller, attributed the high cost to flooding and high cost of fertiliser during the current farming season.
