Stakeholders in the agricultural sector are evolving proactive strategies aimed at improving the quality of processed goods to overcome the ban on some produce exported from the country.
This is contained in a special survey conducted by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the ban placed on some 25 exportable produce by the European Union (EU) between 2015 and last year.
In Abeokuta, the Chairman of the Ogun branch of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Mr. Segun Dasaolu, informed that farmers were engaging in effective collaborative efforts with the state government in the area of training.
He said the effort was to acquaint the farmers with the international standards and requirements for agricultural produce.
“The state government has begun to organise series of seminars for our members on production methods, processing and packaging ?through the Ministry of Agriculture”, Dasaolu said.
He urged the Federal Government to step up quality control management system for agricultural produce to enhance their acceptability in the global market.
The chairman also advocated for the promotion of organic system of farming in Nigeria to boost the nutritional value of the country’s farm products.
He said: “With organic system, we will do away with synthetic chemicals and fertilisers which constitute the major basis for the rejection of our products at the global market.
“Although it is expensive to practise but it will guarantee high quality for our farm produce and also enhance and create wider market for our goods at the world market.”
Prof. Olufemi Peters, the Executive Director of the Ilorin, Kwara State-based Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), noted that the EU may have banned locally smoked fish from Nigeria because of its health hazard.
Peters, a professor of Chemistry, said that locally smoked fish contains poly aromatic hydrocarbon which could cause cancer.
“One of the main disadvantages of the way peasant farmers smoke their fish is the presence of what we call polyaromatic hydrocarbon in the fish’’, the don said.
The don said the institute has designed a more environmentally-friendly smoking kiln that is free from polyaromatic hydrocarbon.
According to Peters, the NSPRI smoking kiln is hygienic and free from any form of health hazard, adding that fish smoked by the kiln could compete with any in the world.
He said that fish farmers could export their smoked fish to any part of the world once there is mass production of the kiln.
However, beans farmers in Kwara called for thorough checks on chemicals used in the preservation of farm produce.
A beans farmer, Mr Dada Olotu, said that most farmers use fake chemicals to preserve their produce, making it unsafe for consumption.
He called on NAFDAC to check the activities of pesticide companies in order to control the influx of fake chemicals into the market.
Also speaking, the Chairman of AFAN in the state, Mr Olawale Ajibola, said lack of basic techniques in processing farm produce was responsible for the rejection of some produce by the EU.
He said: “One major reason those food items were rejected is because they found out after testing that the chemicals used for preservation were either too much or dangerous to health.
“The agricultural research institutes in the country should be revived and equipped to be able to carry out necessary research and testing on food items produced in the country.”
In Ibadan, Mr Ojedeji Joseph, the Oyo State chapter Chairman of Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria, said many produce fail the standards test abroad due to farmers and middlemen’s reluctance to follow strictly the processing regime.
Citing the case of cocoa, Joseph said the steps to be taken in cocoa processing were depoding, fermentation, drying and storage, adding that a failure in any of these stages may lead to rejection.
Joseph said many farmers were now feeling the impact of the ban on their income and were working assiduously to meet the standards through painstaking processing of their farm produce.
He, however, lamented the dearth of the modern processing equipment for some produce, saying this may affect the quality of produce meant for export.
In Ado-Ekiti, the state government said measures were being adopted toward ensuring that cash crops such as cocoa beans produced in the state and packaged for export were made to meet international standard.
The state Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Kehinde Odebunmi, said farmers were incurring huge losses due to poor packaging.
