Efforts are being made to help Nigeria re-enter the global beans market estimated at $7.21 billion, which is expected to hit $9.43 billion by 2028.
Nigeria produces nearly 47 million metric tonnes of beans from an estimated 4.5 million hectares yearly, making it the largest producer in Africa and fourth largest producer in the world.
In 2015, the European Union (E.U.) banned the importation of Nigerian beans for containing high pesticide, considered harmful to health.
At present, dried beans are prohibited from being taken to the United Kingdom and E.U.
Nigerian exporters had complained about the U.K. and E.U.’s rejection of several agricultural produce from Africa’s biggest economy, an action that had often resulted in huge financial losses to the merchants.
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Lead Strategist, FutuX Agri-consult Limited, Babatunde Olarewaju said exporting beans with sustainable certifications would help Nigeria make huge money from the global market as well as the government to foster, economic, social and environmental sustainability at the same time.
According to him, sustainable certification of beans identify it as green produce, for which many are willing to pay a higher price.
According to him, the approach would increase the country’s export earnings while also protecting the environment and creating more jobs.
Recently, stakeholders raised concerns that Nigeria has been losing $382.5 million yearly arising from the ban on beans exportation by the E.U. in the last eight years, bringing the total loss to $2.9 billion.
The stakeholders stated this in a communique released at the end of a stakeholders’meeting on agroecology and climate justice as well as the official launch of the Strategic Partnership for Agroecology and Climate Justice in West Africa (SPAC) West Africa.
The project was organised by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and ActionAid Nigeria at the weekend in Abuja.
The stakeholders included the House Committee on Agriculture Production and Services, Action Aid Nigeria, Small scale Women Farmers Organisation of Nigeria (SWOFON), All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) and the Nigeria Agribusiness (NABG).
While emphasising the need to embrace agroecology, they maintained that though only 25 per cent of chemical pesticides are used by developing countries like Nigeria, the region experienced 99 per cent of deaths from chemical pesticides.
EU extended Nigeria’s bean export ban till June 2022, over the country’s failure to implement its food safety action plan submitted to the commission in 2018.
Worried by the development, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) led an Inter-agency team to the UK as part of a strategic effort to address the issue which constitutes a major constraint to the growth of the non-oil export sector. Among the agencies which participated in the fact-finding mission were the National Food, Drug and Administration Control (NAFDAC), Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), National Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) Skypower Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL) Federal Produce Inspection Service (FPIS) and Federation of Agricultural Commodities Association of Nigeria (FACAN).The Executive Director/Chief Executive of NEPC, Dr. Ezra Yakusak, who led the team on the mission, explained that apart from the cowpea ban, sesame and melon seeds are also under tight scrutiny due to the presence of contaminants but are allowed for import.The NEPC boss had lamented that the cases of rejections had resulted in a stricter inspection regime on Nigerian exports in the importing countries and in some cases led to the suspension or ban of some products.
He said the mission provided the commission and other regulatory/facilitating agencies the opportunity to observe first hand, the processes of agricultural commodities import procedures which also enabled them to interact with Port Health and Food Import Regulatory Agencies at the Border Control Posts (BCPs) in the UK.
The federal government said the European Union and the United States of America’s export ban on Nigerian beans remains but hopes it will be lifted soon.
The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, inaugurated the Standing Inter-Ministerial Technical Committee (SIMTC) on Agro Zero Reject Initiative in Abuja in 2021, with the mandate of ensuring that the European Union (EU) ban on the export of Nigerian beans was lifted.
In 2015, the EU banned the importation of Nigerian beans on account of containing a high level of pesticide, considered harmful to health. The EU Safety Authority had in 2015 banned Nigerian beans export because it contained between 0.03mg per kg and 4.6mg/kg of dichlorvos pesticide when the acceptable maximum residue limit was 0.01mg/kg.The commission later extended the suspension of the imports of dried beans from Nigeria until June 2019 under the CN codes 0713 35 00 and 0713 90 00 owing to the continuous presence of dichlorvos and the impossibility to achieve in a short time compliance with the union food law requirements regarding pesticide residues.”In February 2018, Nigeria submitted a new action plan and stated that its objective was to control and streamline in particular dried beans, strengthen the legal and regulatory environment and build fundamentals for quality production of dried beans.”However, the Commission understands that Nigeria has not yet implemented that action plan, nor granted any budgetary means for its implementation.