EXPORT promotion officials have announced fresh plans to improve the quality of Nigerian agricultural produce in a desperate bid to meet up with European Union (EU) standards so as to facilitate sales.
Historically, Nigerian farm produce has found it difficult to gain access to the EU market because of the high food safety standards and there is currently a blanket ban on all dairy products entering the community. In June 2015, the EU banned all Nigerian dry bean imports on the grounds that they contain high levels of pesticide considered dangerous to human health.
Eager to address the problem in the light of falling oil prices and the need to diversify exports, the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (Naqs) has announced new measures to ensure that more produce meets EU standards. Christopher Onukwuba, the head of Naqs's department of collaboration, planning and international trade, said that the EU’s recent extension of its ban on Nigerian beans had called for the need for product regulatory agencies to redouble their efforts.
Mr Onukwuba said: “The Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service is currently doing a lot to make more Nigerian agricultural produce acceptable to the European countries. With the EU’s extension of its ban on Nigerian beans, our product regulatory agencies are prepared to ensure that agricultural produce from Nigeria meets the required EU standards.
“We are developing more laboratories for testing every agricultural produce before leaving Nigeria for the EU and other countries. We are now going to be visiting farmers and warehouses to ensure that they meet requirements for processing, packaging and transportation of our produce for international markets."
He blamed the recent EU ban of Nigerian beans on over-use of pesticides by farmers, pointing out that he agency would intensify its sensitisation visits to farmlands. Mr Onukwuba pledged Naqs's planned collaboration with the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria to ensure that farmers conform to internationally-accepted pesticide-use standards.
Furthermore, Mr Onukwuba announced his agency’s readiness to always carefully inspect and monitor produce from the farms through their packaging processes, transportation and to the warehouses, for shipment. He also said that Naqs had intensified capacity building programmes for its officers to be able to adequately quarantine agricultural produce for local consumption, as well as international needs.
“A manual is also being developed to further train our farmers, transporters, marketers and exporters, on the required standards for exportation of these produce, At the moment, it is only Nigerian’s vegetable products that are being accepted in the European countries," Mr Onukwuba added.
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