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An agricultural expert, Sheriff Balogun, has identified measures to mitigate the rejection of Nigeria’s agricultural products like sesame and cowpea in the international market. Balogun, the National President of the Federation of Agricultural Commodity Associations of Nigeria (FACAN), said this in an interview with the news agency on Sunday in Abuja.
According to him, one of the measures for curbing the rejection is to critically monitor the production processes of commodities produced in the country. “This is because whatever you do, if you put control measures from a production point of view, you have reduced 80 percent of the problem.
“You need to educate the farmers because a lot of them lack knowledge of extension services. There used to be extension services in those days where you have state governments, state ministry of agriculture, agric development projects and then they have extension offices.
“The extension officers educate the farmers on best practices, what to cultivate, how to cultivate the right seed, the right chemicals and how to apply them, how to harvest, and so on.” Balogun reiterated need to adopt such old practices and also ensure training of the trainer.
“We need to train them on how to plant, harvest, and store their products, and then expose them to good packaging materials. We need to let them know the hazards in using any type of packaging for their products.”
According to the expert, the means of transportation is another factor that needs to be looked into. “Like I mentioned, transportation is key. If you have done all the right things at the primary level, your means of transportation can contaminate your products if ignored.
“Imagine you want to move your rice, and then the truck has just discharged cement. If you do not clean or wash the truck, droplets from the cement can penetrate through your rice bags.
“So this will get into your product and contaminate it. You may not see it, but when you get to your destination and the product is tested, you will have a problem. So the transportation logistics structure itself needs to be regulated.”
Balogun called on the Federal Government to make concerted efforts towards regulating the logistics of agricultural products in the country.
“There must be a way to segment the logistic chain. By either having transports that will be used specifically for movement of goods, food, industrial products, chemical and all of that.
“In advanced countries, it is categorised, you cannot use the transport means that is used to carry hazardous chemicals to move food products. There is categorisation and specialisation in terms of logistics. And we have to be able to practice that to improve the standard of our products,” he said.
Balogun said another aspect that contributed greatly to contamination of products was the warehouse system. According to him, a lot of warehouses used by exporters are commercial warehouses, where inspections and supervision are done before shipping of the goods.
“But a lot of those warehouses operate these different products. So they may take cashews, sesame seed and ginger. And sometimes, your product might be clean and don’t have any pests or anything, but because other goods are stored in that warehouse, the pest from those other goods will infect your own.
“So there must be a control system put in place for the warehousing system that is well equipped to solve that problem,” Balogun said. World Trade Organization (WTO) said Nigeria had lost its position in the agriculture export markets. According to the WTO, the country suffers rejection of its agricultural commodities because they do not meet the sanitary and phytosanitary requirements of the foreign markets.
The organisation, thus, recently inaugurated some initiatives that would help the country mitigate some of these challenges in the foreign market. Some of the initiatives include the Standards Trade Development Facility, Digital Trade Initiative support, Women Exporters Entrepreneurship support, National Trade Portal, and cotton development initiative. #Expert Offers Solutions to Nigeria’s Agric Products Rejection Foreign Investors Boost Interest in Nigeria US Dollar Bonds