• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

Failure to meet sanitary, phytosanitary requirements limit Nigeria’s role in foreign trade

agricultural export

Nigeria’s agricultural exports are likely to either continue being treated with suspicion or be out rightly rejected as long as certain international standards and best practices are not observed in agricultural production.

Vincent Isegbe, director-general, Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), in an interview, has described the inability of stakeholders across the agriculture value chain, to meet the relevant sanitary and phytosanitary requirements applicable in the destination countries for agro-exports as the most serious impediment to Nigeria’s participation in foreign trade.

Isegbe explained this is because many countries prohibit the import of produce with mycotoxin contamination, high pesticide residue, microbial contamination, sloppy packaging and labelling. This according to him, causes Nigeria to lose huge revenue, servicing narrow export market options.

“It is our goal to make Nigerian agricultural produce acceptable everywhere in the world,” he said. “That way, we will earn more foreign exchange from more destination countries.”

A number of agricultural products of Nigerian origin have either been banned in the past, or currently still banned in some countries. In mid-2015 beans, sesame seeds, melon seeds, dried fish and meat, peanut chips of Nigerian origin were banned from being imported into Europe. While the ban on others has since been lifted, that of beans remains, because of high pesticide residue from a chemical known as Dichlorvos. Also, the United States placed a ban on smoked catfish and all fish products from Nigeria, for failure to provide information on fish exports through a self reporting tool.

According to Isegbe, given the need to empower farmers, off takers and exporters to comply with the standards of the export market, NAQS is implementing a program of backward integration for better export products. This intervention codenamed “Export Improvement Initiative” is tailored to ensure that all relevant activities performed from the fields where the prospective export crops are cultivated up to the point of shipment are consistent with the standard conditions and protocols. As part of this measure, Isegbe says the agency has been interfacing with stakeholders to educate and train them on export quality criteria for agricultural produce.

The highlights of these enlightenment workshops and campaigns are the instruction of stakeholders on Global Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) and the formation of self-regulating associations among the different commodity producer constituencies. Through this strategy, NAQS says it is addressing the fundamental inhibitors of agricultural export and widening the scope for participation of everyday Nigerians in the export business.

As the Agency tasked with the promotion of export of agricultural produce, NAQS says it is leading the government’s drive to stem the tide of the rejection of some Nigerian agricultural produce in foreign markets due to quality defects.

According to Isegbe, some of NAQS’ efforts in mainstreaming best practices are yielding desired rewards. Due to increased knowledge and adaptation to guidelines, Nigeria was able to export1,983 containers of Hibiscus to Mexico, within the first 9 months of 2017; with earnings of $35 million.

“Our mission is to catalyze the harnessing of the export potentials of Nigerian agricultural resources,” Isgebe said. He explained the agency recently conducted a crop pest survey on pigeon pea, sorghum and groundnut. The result of the pigeon pea survey according to him, has paved a way for Nigeria to penetrate the $100 billion pigeon pea market of India. In the same vein, the crop pest survey on sorghum has opened the door for Nigeria to export forage sorghum to China. A local company is expected to ship out the first batch of its consignment in the first quarter of this year.

In addition to the traditional agro-export items, NAQS has also identified underutilized but high premium emerging agro-commodities such as sesame, soya bean, cinnamon, pigeon pea, sugar cane, honey and snail that will revolutionize Nigeria’s non-oil export business. The agency says it plans to launch in the coming weeks, “Export Certification Value Chain (ECVC)” for Onions, Garlic, Honey, Cow horns/hooves, Sunflower, Nsukka Yellow Pepper, Sesame, Gum Arabic and Tumeric. ECVC details the export eligibility standards for the respective items and outlines the actionable instructions that stakeholders have to adhere to for their produce to pass NAQS inspection and certification tests which are preconditions for issuance of the phytosanitary certificate (i.e export permit).

 

CALEB OJEWALE