• That a preservation plant idles away, while N1.3 trillion is lost yearly through rotten produce, exemplifies the wanton waste that plagues Nigeria
One of the most audacious programmes of the present government is the export of yam to earn forex, as part of its agricultural renaissance. Even without discounting exporting yam in processed form, to add value and command higher prices, the yam tuber export terribly suffered from bad preservation and indifferent packaging.
That led to the inevitable comparison with yam the neighbouring Ghana exports; and how Nigeria badly fares in the international yam market, which Ghana dominates. Yet, while Ghana produces no more than seven species of yam, Nigeria produces some 44 species. That means, other things being equal, the international yam market should have been Nigeria’s to dominate.
Bad preservation culture is why this has not been so. That turns harvest time into great times of wastes — yam, tomatoes, cassava, pepper and other crops and produce — which turns farmers into systemic paupers. Yet, with the gamma irradiation facility (GIF), at the Nuclear Technology Centre (NTC), Sheda Science and Technology Complex (SHESTCO), Abuja, this ought not to have been the situation.
Dr. Abduljhalil Tafawa Balewa, a nuclear chemist with NTC, told NAN the GIF facilities there could have been easy answers to Nigeria’s poor preservation problems. What is more? He described the centre as not only one of the world’s most modern in commercial irradiation facilities but the only one in Africa not being utilised. You would say, from the Nigerian unfortunate culture of willful waste, that is hardly a surprise.
Still why, with the perennial farmers’ challenge at harvest time, which glut forces them to sell tubers and fresh crops at ridiculous prices?
First, there would appear little, if any at all, linkage between the centre’s facilities and the market. Otherwise, it should have interested thousands of farmers who, year after year, grind their teeth in pain, earning poverty for their hard labour.
Lack of linkage would itself appear a function of poor publicity, in the right market quarters. If the market is unaware of the services NTC offers, how can farmers patronise it? That would appear a classic disarticulation: a government that sinks billions of naira into a facility but is a bit coy about exploiting fully its commercial irradiation services. It is another troubling face of a wasting asset, with everyone remaining the loser.
Then, the transportation system. While many states have invested in the Rural Access Mobility Programme (RAMP), a core scheme pushed by the World Bank to link farmsteads to markets and evacuate farm produce with minimal stress, little thought would appear to have gone to building a preservation link, using as hub, the NTC GIF preservation facilities.
Central to this would be penetrative rail. So, with the current heightened rail activism, now is the time to factor a crop preservation link into the renascent rail system. That way, farmers can make good money from their crops. If well preserved, they can control the quantity they push into the market at the time of glut, and also earn forex from the global market.
To boost the prospect of this new but vital line of business, the government should also design a credit infrastructure, in which the banks can partner with these farmers for mutual gain and profit.
A world class crop preservation plant, side by side with wanton agricultural wastes, is grave economic disequilibrium that should never be allowed to happen in any serious economy.
Therefore, the Federal Government, working through the ministries involved — Agriculture and Water Resources, Science and Technology, Transportation, Finance and even Information, for the requisite publicity — should put together the needed linkages to ensure NTC is fully utilised and exploited.