By Dipo Olowookere
The market for agricultural commodities in Nigeria closed mixed on Wednesday following the decline in the price of maize and an increase in the price of sorghum.
Data fetched by Business Post from the AFEX Commodities Exchange Limited indicated that the price of maize per metric tonne depreciated by 0.44 per cent.
Yesterday, traders sold the commodity for N159,864/MT compared with Tuesday’s rate of N158,056, losing N704 in 24 hours.
However, the price of sorghum increased on Wednesday by 0.40 per cent in the commodities market.
At the market on Tuesday, the agric product was sold for N124,500/MT but yesterday, the price went up by N500 to N125,000.
It was gathered the increase in the price of sorghum at the market yesterday was because of the slight increase in the demand for it.
Sorghum is the world’s fifth most important cereal crop. It is typically produced on an annual basis, but some varieties are perennial.
It grows in clumps that may reach over four meters high and it can be used for a variety of purposes, including but not limited to the production of alcoholic beverages, ethanol fuels (biofuels), flatbreads and a number of other snacks.
For the price of other commodities at the market on Wednesday, they remained unchanged.
At the close of transactions yesterday, prices of soybean remained at N150,000/MT, the paddy rice flat at N189,907/MT, ginger was still at N752,667/MT, while cocoa was still sold for N916,000/MT.
Business Post gathered that last week, the aggregate volume of trades executed on the exchange was 649.38MT with maize and soybean accounting for over 89 per cent of the total traded volume. Maize contributed 156.42MT, while soybean had 422.79MT.
Adedapo Adesanya