- Measures are being put in place by the Federal Government has begun to ensure that the European Union (EU) lifts the suspension placed on beans exportation from Nigeria.
- Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) said it organised a workshop for beans farmers, extension workers and other stakeholders to educate them on best practices to meet export standards.
- Speaking at the workshop in Kano, Co-ordinating Director, NAQS, Dr. Vincent Isegbe, said there was an urgent need for collaboration of all stakeholders to prevent the extension of the suspension beyond 2016.
- Isegbe said, if farmers do not sell, they will not be encouraged to produce and if they do not produce, the merchants will not have what to sell.
“If it is not brought under control, the high revenue generated from this commodity will reduce and then poverty will increase.
As an agency of government responsible for certifying and ensuring that farmers who produce commodity for export have free exports to earn good money, it is our responsibility that, the process is not truncated from the point of production to the point of export, it should be free and beneficial,” he said.
- According to him, most farmers go to the wrong government agency seeking solutions, as he urged them to direct their challenges and enquiries to NAQS.
- Also speaking, Head of Collaboration and Partnership, NAQS, Nnamdi Onukwuba, noted that the suspension was as a result of high quantity of chemicals used as pesticides in beans exported.
- Onukwuba said EU had given Nigeria June 30, 2016, to put in place all measures to produce healthier beans for consumption, as he blamed the situation on middle men who store the commodity with chemicals before export.
- He said NAQS was setting up a system that would enable exporters buy directly from the farmers as laboratory test had revealed that chemicals were very low at the farm level.
- According to him, as soon the system becomes operational, NAQS will no longer issue certificate to exporters who buy from the open market.
- A beans exporter, Rashid Maggi, said if the ban is extended, Nigerian farmers and merchants will be the ultimate losers.
- Maggi challenged the regulators to penalise defaulters, urging NAQS to visit warehouses for random checks on agricultural produce set for export.
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