The average price of major food items in Nigeria, like yam, rice and tomatoes, reduced in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said.
The NBS said this in its “Selected Food Price Watch (June 2019)’’ report released on its website.
It said the average price of one kilogramme of tomatoes decreased from N317.67 recorded in June 2018 to N226.07 in June 2019 representing a 28.84 per cent reduction.
Also, the price of one kilogramme of tomatoes reduced from N249.52 recorded in May 2019 to N226.07 in June representing a 9.40 per cent decrease.
The bureau also said the average price paid for one kilogramme of rice (imported high quality sold loose) decreased from N373.47 in June 2018 to N352.82 in June 2019.
The price of one kilogramme of rice decreased from N361.39 recorded in May 2019 to N352.82 in June 2019 representing a 2.37 per cent decrease.
Rice is considered a staple food for most households in Nigeria. Although its importation has been banned, imported rice, mostly through porous land borders, is still common across Nigeria.
Also, the average price of one kilogramme of yam decreased by 36.27 per cent when compared to N305.70 recorded in June 2018
The price of a tuber of yam, a substitute for rice in many Nigerian homes, decreased from N216.03 recorded in May 2019 to N182.15 in June 2019, representing a decrease of 15.68 per cent.
A similar reduction occurred in the unit price of eggs. The NBS said the average price of a piece of a medium-sized egg when compared to the N41.38 recorded in June 2018 decreased by 5.01 per cent to N39.30.
When compared to May 2019, the unit price of a medium-sized egg decreased from N42.82 to N39.30 in June 2019 representing 8.20 per cent decrease.
The NBS said in arriving at the report, fieldwork was done by over 700 NBS staff in all states of the federation supported by supervisors, who were monitored by internal and external observers.
It said the prices were collected across all the 774 local governments across all states and the FCT from over 10,000 respondents and locations and reflect actual prices households state they actually bought those items.
“The average of all these prices is then reported for each state and the average for the country is the average for the state.
“NBS audit team subsequently conducts randomly selected verification of prices recorded,” it added.
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