FG’s Rice Intervention Rescued Nigeria During Lockdown – Oliver Ntui

The Chairman, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Cross River Chapter, Mr. Oliver Ntui has come out to say that the Federal Government rice intervention initiative saved Nigeria during the coronavirus lockdown.

He revealed this during a recent interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar.

According to him, access to local rice produce was what sustained Nigerians during the lockdown and rice farmers were pleased with FG since there would have been hunger in the nation without the agricultural interventions.

He added that Cross River is gradually becoming a hub and tourist attraction for rice production because of its magnificent rice seedling factory which produces seedlings not only for farmers in the state but to other parts of the nation.

His words, “Everywhere was locked down without movement and importation but the local rice production sustained the economy and I want to say thank you to the President.

“Through the RIFAN, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Anchor Borrowers Scheme 2020 rice farmers in the state received inputs like organic fertilisers, agro chemicals, knapsack sprayers and pumping machines which boosted rice production geometrically.”

“Cross River is gradually becoming a hub and tourist attraction for rice production because of the magnificent rice seedling factory which produces seedlings not only for farmers in the state but to other parts of the nation.

“There is also the ongoing construction of a gigantic ultra-modern rice mill in Ogoja and the training of rice farmers in the state to increase their productivity.”

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Coronaviruses are a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can be mild, such as some cases of the common cold (among other possible causes, predominantly rhinoviruses), and others that can be lethal, such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Symptoms in other species vary: in chickens, they cause an upper respiratory tract disease, while in cows and pigs they cause diarrhea. There are yet to be vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses constitute the subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, in the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, and realm Riboviria. They are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The genome size of coronaviruses ranges from approximately 27 to 34 kilobases, the largest among known RNA viruses. The name coronavirus is derived from the Latin corona, meaning “crown” or “halo”, which refers to the characteristic appearance reminiscent of a crown or a solar corona around the virions (virus particles) when viewed under two-dimensional transmission electron microscopy, due to the surface covering in club-shaped protein spikes.

Human coronaviruses were first discovered in the late 1960s. The earliest ones discovered were an infectious bronchitis virus in chickens and two in human patients with the common cold (later named human coronavirus 229E and human coronavirus OC43). Other members of this family have since been identified, including SARS-CoV in 2003, HCoV NL63 in 2004, HKU1 in 2005, MERS-CoV in 2012, and SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) in 2019. Most of these have involved serious respiratory tract infections.