By Innocent Onoh
Farmers in the South West zone of Nigeria have benefited from the Federal Government’s seminar on food safety. The initiative was aimed at promoting quality assurance across the agricultural value chain, thus tackling incidents of rejection of the country’s food exports at the international market.
In a message to the participants in the seminar in Lagos, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbe, stated government’s unflinching commitment to quickly diversify the economy from oil to agricultural-based for sustainable growth, stressing that such could only be achieved when the country’s food commodities become generally acceptable.
The Minister, who was represented at the event by Dr. Vincent Isegbe, Coordinating Director, Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service, said “There is no time than now to mainstream food safety into agricultural production if we want to really diversify our economy using Agriculture as veritable tool and also have our own share of the export at both regional and international markets”. Nigeria’s quest to earn foreign exchange from agriculture in the wake of fallen oil prices suffered major setback due to incidents of commodities rejection by the EU and others over contamination which is blamed on the type of chemicals farmers use for planting and storing.
Mr. Ogbe advised farmers to embrace high safety standards in all stages of practice.”The quality control of our commodities starts from the field operations including land clearing, soil testing, seeds selection, varietal selection, chemical applications, good agricultural practices as well as post-harvest operations, which explains the strategic role of the standing Inter-Ministerial Technical Committee on Zero Rejection in addressing the quality assurance of produce right from the farm in Nigeria. He said this would be undertaken in collaboration with other regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Department of Agriculture, the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Services, the National Agricultural Seed Council, the Standards Organization of Nigeria, the National Agency for Foods, Drug Administration and Control, the Central Bank of Nigeria, among others.
The Minister said “the ban on dry beans from Nigeria by the EU was an eye-opener that we should continously be mindful of standards and quality, to avoid incidences of non-communicable diseases in Nigeria. I also learnt that between July 2016 and June 2017, about 48 notifications were received from EU on our export goods including nuts, seeds and vegetables, due to a flat ox in and many other contaminants.
Contributing, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, who was represented by a top official in the ministry, Michael Okubueze, urged the farmers to make good use of the knowledge they acquired from the forum.
The Minister assured that the seminar which is being held in continuation of Nationwide Advocacy on Agricultural Quality Control and Standardization, would continue in the South-South and North-East zones after it has been held in 3 other zones.
In Mr. Enelamah’s view, “Nigerians also deserve good, safe and quality agro outputs for consumption and should be globally accepted like their counterparts across the globe. I wish to commend our administration on this giant stride and vision by revolutionizing agriculture in Nigeria with more effort on food safety and quality assurance of our agricultural commodities. His words, “The train took off from the North-West after we were hosted by the government of Kano state on Monday, 28th August; it got to North Central where we were hosted by the government of Benue State on Wednesday, 6th September; we then proceeded to the South East, where we were hosted by the government of Enugu State. Today, we are in the South West, generously being hosted by the government of Lagos State. From here, we will proceed to the South-South and finally get to the North East.
Mr. Enelamah enthused that “The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has not had it this good in the past as regards Agricultural quality control strategies, thus aggressively addressing the culture of quality in the sector. Previous efforts of the Ministry were only geared towards increased cultivation and output per unit area with less emphasis on quality and standards of our produce”.
In his address, the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, described one of the success stories of the transformation in the Agricultural sector as the partnership between Lagos and Kebbi states which resulted in the reduction of the price of rice for the people. Governor Ambode was represented by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Oluwatotin Suarau.
Some of the farmers described the high point of the seminar as the distribution of intervention materials including special crates for preserving eggs free of charge to the participants. They saw it as an indication that the event was successful.
