Prices of maize, rice, sorghum, others to soar - AFEX

a nigeria’s leading commodities market player, AFEX has forecasted higher prices increase across six food commodities, namely maize, paddy rice, sorghum, soybean, cocoa and sesame by the end of december 2022 to the first half of 2023. AFEX’S forecast is contained in its 2022 Wet Season Crop Production report unveiled at a hybrid event hosted at the firm’s head office in abuja on Wednesday.

The report said maize which faces a projected decline in production levels of up to 14percent is projected to reach a higher average price point ranging between n214, 980/metric ton ($486.72) and n220,000/ metric ton ($498.09) by the end of the fourth quarter (Q4) 2022.

according to the report, this compared to an average price of ($475.97) n210, 229/ metric ton in Q4 2021, and projected that soybean price will rise by 6% by may 2023.

david Ibidapo, AFEX head of market data and research who presented the report said annual crop production research seeks to provide robust market intelligence for agriculture value chain players in nigeria.

“The 2022 Wet Season Crop Production report forecasts an average decline in production levels of up to 11.5% across commodities like maize, paddy rice, sorghum, and cocoa, while soybean and sesame will experience a close to 6.5% increase in production levels.

“nigeria’s most consumed grains are currently faced with declining food balance sheets as consumption levels rise faster than production levels, worsening food insecurity,” he said.

Ibidapo said the report which seeks to provide accurate and reliable data to aid the understanding of national food system through farmer surveys and measurement of transaction level data, tracks six key commodities and their performance in the preceding season.

“as reflected in the report, price and market changes across maize, paddy rice, sorghum, soybean, cocoa and sesame have been affected both by predictable seasonality effects and activities in the agricultural value chain as well as larger macroeconomic and global events.

“We have more than doubled the count of farmers surveyed for this research, up from 9117 farmers surveyed last year to 20,677 farmers surveyed for this year’s report.”