As people pour into farms to cash in on the business opportunity of feeding a booming population, concerns over the safety of the foods consumed by Nigerians have been brought to the fore with the banning of Nigeria’s food items exported to Europe, writes HANNAH OJO.
CAUTION ALERT. That was the mood triggered with the scary move of the European Union when it banned several food items originating from Nigeria in 2015 and 2016. Prior to the ban, cases of food poisoning leading to loss of lives were often reported in the Nigerian news space. Last year, a family of six in Kaduna reportedly died after eating contaminated beans cake.
It is, therefore, not surprising that when the European Union rejected 67 processed and semi-processed foods from Nigeria as a result of poor quality, contamination and high levels of chemicals in the preserved products, food items such as beans, melon seeds, palm oil, bitter leaf, pumpkin, shelled groundnuts and live snails topped the list. The pesticide level of banned beans from Nigeria was said to be between 3.03mg per kg to 4.6mg per kg of Dichlorvos pesticide, while the acceptable residue limit is 0.01mg/kg.
The chemical contents notwithstanding, findings revealed that Nigerians consume these food items with relish. Absence of labeling or inadequate labeling in many cases, renders many helpless as they are forced to buy food from the open market without gleaning proper information on the chemicals that have been used to preserve the food items.
Findings show that melon, one of the exported food items banned by the European Union, which is a soup delicacy consumed with relish in Nigeria, can be compromised by aflatoxins. Aflatoxin is a toxin produced by certain fungi found on agricultural crops. Contamination of melons has become more rampant in recent time as many no longer follow the conventional style of removing melon seeds from its protective shell but rather rely on ground melon wrapped in cellophane bags purchased in the open market.
If melons are packed in cellophane bags, there is a tendency that the acids in the melon will react with the cellophane’s petroleum reside, making it to become oxidised overtime. This way, free radicals are stocked into the soup which would be later consumed with relish.
Also, with Nigeria’s haphazard storage system and the long process in transporting food from the farms to ready markets, shelled groundnuts, another exported banned food items consumed in Nigeria, is easily infected with fungi. It reacts by denaturing the oil. Vegetables are also not immune to aflatoxins infection as they are quick to rotten.
According to Dr Oladele Dokun, a veterinary doctor at the Nigeria’s Animal Care Laboratory, “Research has shown that aflatoxin causes infertility, abortions and delayed onset of egg production in birds as well as sudden losses in egg production in actively laying birds. Furthermore, loss of appetite, skin discoloration or even yellowish pigmentation on skin can be observed in fish.”
Aflatoxic poisoning is also known as aflatoxicosis. In humans, it may present as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, convulsion, collection of fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema), collection of fluid in the brain (cerebral edema), abnormalities of the blood, including blood cancer even in children, bleeding, liver damage and cancer, kidney and heart damage and even death.
Likewise, a study on local African markets carried out by Dr J.H Williams of the University of Georgia, United States, reported that about 40 per cent of the commodities found in the open markets exceeded the permissible aflatoxin levels (in excess of the international standards of 10-20ppb) and that an estimated 4.5billion people in developing countries are at risk of uncontrolled exposure to aflatoxins.
“It is known that high aflatoxin levels in the bloodstream depresses the immune system, thereby facilitating cancer, HIV, and stunting the growth of children”, the report quoted.
Sharing a personal experience, Mr Femi Kusa, a columnist and fellow of the Nigerian Association of Physicians of Natural Medicine recalled how he once ordered 20 litres of fresh palm kernel oil from a region of the country but was shocked to find a white film over it some days later.
“It was fungi! So, I threw the keg and its contents away and proceeded with the detoxification of my system. This sort of thing can make one ill, and an inexperienced doctor would merely provide drugs to suppress symptoms he observes and not uproot the cause(s).
“If you shrug your shoulders in disbelief, saying our grandparents ate these things and lived to ripe, old age, you may not have looked at the other side of the equation. That other side was their diet. Did they consume sugar the way we do today? Did they eat junk foods? Were they stressed up the way we are? Did they not sleep longer and more restfully than we do? Their bodies were not as weak as ours, and probably didn’t collapse as easily as our do under aflatoxin bombardment”, Mr Kusa questioned in his piece titled “Aflotoxins in Nigerian Foods”, published in the Natural Remedies for Sound body and Mind column for The Nation.
It was also gathered that a few years ago, the EU banned the importation of Nigerian cocoa after a high Gamalin-20 (a pesticide) was found in chocolates and ovaltine. Later, another import ban covered beans, sesame seeds, melon seeds, dried fish and meat, peanut chips and palm oil.
Prof Kolawole Adebayo, a rural development expert lecturing at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, believes that the influx of contaminated food in the country owes to activities in the informal food sector which produces most of the food consumed in Nigeria.
“If you want to buy garri, you don’t look for the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) number because you are going to buy it in the local market. However, if you set up a company which sells packaged garri, then you need a NAFDAC number. This same rule applies if you want to export outside of Nigeria.”
Commenting on the banned Nigerian food items in Europe, Prof Adebayo, who is also the Project Director of the Cassava: Adding Value for Africa Phase II (CAVA II), affirmed that once there is evidence of some unwanted bodies in a food crop, the importing nations are within their rights to reject it.
“I think the problem the agric export sector faces in this instance is that some of the exporters did not get the required certificate, not because the food items in themselves were bad. This is a problem of the government perse in terms of how it implements its own programmes and policies and what it allows to go in or come out of this country”, he stressed.
Explaining how insufficient labeling can cause food poisoning, Prof Adebayo described partly labeling as a poor agriculture practice.
“If you are selling frozen food and it has been protected against weevils, the chemical you find in beans is not attacking it while in store or in transit, you need to label so that your customers buying it will know that this particular beans has been treated with an insecticide and will not be fit for consumption for another one month.”
Emphasizing on the need for the active inspection of food items in the open market by regulatory government agencies, he likewise canvassed for the promotion of radio awareness jingles to enable consumers to be discerning.
Also, the President, Federation of Agriculture Commodity Association of Nigeria, Dr Victor Iyama, in a chat with The Nation maintained that contamination of food from Nigeria is not as rampant as being orchestrated by the European Union.
Speaking on unsafe foods in the informal sector, he averred that most of the contaminated foods imported into the country are compromised by their packaging and presence of preservatives. For foods of Nigerian origin like beans banned in Europe, he attributes storage as the cause of contamination.
“The few contaminations from the farms would be those that use expired or banned chemicals. That is why we are trying to eject bad packaging, especially hydro carbon free bags and all that. We are also training farmers to adopt organic fertilizers, though that has its own cost because the yields would be limited but it is better to have safe foods than fantastic yield,” he said.
Faced with the reality that some of the food items in the open markets are usually infected with rodents, he said plans are on to embark on radio jingles to educate food vendors to cover their food, in order to prevent possible outbreaks of diseases like lassa fever.
Early last year, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, raised a warning signal, saying Nigerians might be killing themselves in installment through the food they eat. Food items mentioned included moi-moi wrapped with cellophane and sachet water exposed to the sun at 28 degree Celsius. He also adds that many of the cows shepherded by herdsmen are already infected with tuberculosis.
NAFDAC’s Director of Special Duties and Communications, Dr Abubakar Jimoh, in a phone conversation with The Nation stated that in an attempt to safeguard the health of Nigerians, the agency, which is charged with regulating processed foods, is also working with farmers to ensure that whatever they produce at home will not be rejected in the international community.
“We have recently established a veterinary department which works closely with Nigerian farmers and even animals that have contaminated drugs administered to them. We do not want them to get into the body of an average consumer.”
Dr Jimoh also averred that the agency has been educating farmers on correct chemical applications for food storage in order to prevent food contamination.
On precautionary measures to be taken, Prof Ngozi Nnam, a former National President of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, advised Nigerians to consume fruits and vegetables rich in powerful anti-oxidants in order to suppress the effect of contaminated foods.
“Nature has a way of taking care of contamination but our problem in Nigeria is that we don’t take enough foods rich in antioxidants. Vitamins A and C are good sources that are derived from fruits and vegetables. Nigerians should consider adding fruits and vegetables to their diets as they help protect the body from harmful effect of contaminants,” she advised.
