Price of cassava flakes popularly called garri and regularly consumed by Nigerians have continued to increase in Enugu State, according to newsmen.
NAN correspondent, who conducted a market survey in Enugu on Friday, reported that the price of the staple food has increased by 20 per cent between January and March, 2021.
NAN reports that a 4.5 liter bucket of the food item now sells for between N1,100 and N1,400 as against between N900 and N1,000 sold in January, depending on the type.
A visit to some markets in the state capital showed that a 4.5 liter paint bucket of white garri sold for N900 in January now went for between N1,100 and N1200.
At the Ogbete, Garki and New Markets, a paint bucket of white garri is sold for N1,100 while the yellow garri of the same bucket goes for N1,200.
But at the Artisan and New Haven markets, the white garri paint bucket goes for N1,200 while the yellow one is sold at N1,400.
Boniface Ugwu, a garri trader at New Market said garri price had remained high for some weeks now, blaming it on cassava off-season and also to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Ugwu said he was not able to buy enough quantity of the commodity to sell due to its price increase.
Azuka Madu, another garri seller at Garki Market said a bag of white garri was sold for N24,500 as against 17,000 while the yellow garri was sold for N27,000 as against N22,500 sold in January.
Mrs Madu further said that a 4.5 litre bucket of the white garri which sold for N900 now goes for N1,100.
Another trader at Garki Market, Kaodili Ozor, said the increment was high compared to previous years.
“The price of garri increases at the beginning of January due to its gradual off-season but because of lockdown, many farmers did not plant and some planted few,” she said.
A cassava farmer, Joseph Okeagu, blamed the dry season for the scarcity and increased price of the product.
According to him, the dry season had made it difficult for farmers to harvest the crop because of the hardness of the ground.
“The soil is too hard to dig and even if you succeed, the quantity harvested is small, so we have no choice than to increase the price to cover our expenses.
“There’s nothing we can do now than to wait for the rains,” he said.
‘No options’
Some consumers said they had no choice than to buy it at that cost because other alternatives like fufu were all products of cassava.
Ngozi Agu, a civil servant, said that other ‘swallows’ like pounded yam, oatmeal, farina and Semovita were expensive and difficult to prepare.
According to her, ”it is easy to prepare garri as it takes little time and effort but to make pounded yam and Semovita consumes more time”.
