The federal government estimates that over thirty percent of food produced in Nigeria every year is lost to spoilage or waste as a result of inadequate storage facilities and transportation, lack of packaging materials
To help reduce the amount of produce lost by farmers after they harvest their crops, the federal government is providing 6000 metric tons of storage space at 17 silos to private companies so that farmers can have access to these facilities.
The government has established green aggregation centres that will clean, dry, process and bag our finished products. This single innovation is expected to inject over N18 billion into the economy.
At the Second West and Central Africa Post-Harvest Congress and Exhibition (WCAPHCE) 2022, Minister of Agriculture Mohammad Abubakar disclosed that, “Upscaling and Promotion of African Indigenous Food to global standards” in Abuja,He said that the government's responsibility is to provide a supportive environment in which businesses can thrive—that way, economic growth will benefit everyone.
The Minister of Food and Strategic Reserve, Dr. Haruna Suleiman, was present at the meeting to represent the Director, The centers would enable farmers to clean and dry their agricultural produce during harvests, reducing post-harvest losses and adding value to whatever is being produced—all while strengthening the community's financial independence.
He said, “The major problem being faced by farmers in the country is post-harvest losses as a result of, transportation, lack of equipment that can add value to what is produced, and lack of storage facilities. In addressing this problem, the Federal government has concession 17 silos with 6000 metric tonne storage space to the private sector and also established green aggregation centres that will clean, dry, process and bag our finished products and this will attract over N18 billion to the economy. the responsibility of government is to provide an enabling environment for the private sector to drive the economy”.
Benue State University Vice Chancellor Tor Lorapuu said that the university is working with other partners to ensure not just indigenous food production, but also a reduction in post-harvest losses.
He praised the government for providing storage facilities to farmers across the country and stated that this was an important step towards improving food security to promote partnerships between the private sector and local farmers to increase food storage and reduce post-harvest losses.
In addition, the Director of the Center for Food Technology and Research at Benue State University said that his organization focuses on reducing post-harvest food losses in West Africa. He emphasized that it is important to refocus attention on indigenous foods, encouraging farmers to produce more of these items, thus increasing the supply and reducing or eliminating reliance on foreign sources.
He acknowledged that there are laws and regulations, as well as government agencies tasked with ensuring fair pricing in the market—but noted that these bodies have been ineffective.
Ikyo noticed that the center is developing models and online platforms that will index all food crops in Nigeria, so people who want to buy or sell anywhere they are—whether from their local markets or major metropolitan areas—will be able to go online and see what each crop would cost them.
“With this, farmers can know how much a bag of groceries sold in Abuja, so farmers have this registration and they will be able to say okay, instead of selling this in the market, let me take you to Abuja sell, already there we want in third parties who are going to facilitate the insurance transporters are getting involved monoprint is involved on the money aspect of it.
And we think that when a project like this is supported by the farmer we will have more value in the produce and people will go into food processing to add value to the products the food produced and then they will stay longer on the shelf because the biggest problem which we have been trying to solve is post-harvest loss. In this workshop, you’re going to see how you can process things like tomatoes at the farm level and they can stay on the shelf for four months.
How do you dehydrate some other fresh vegetables and keep them to still maintain the fresh taste when they are cooked? We are trying to promote this to the farmers so that they know how to do it and so that the businessman doesn’t threaten the farmer when they go to the market to buy tomatoes from them. Whether the farmer knows that even if I take this basket of tomatoes back home, It can stay with me for tomatoes for the next four months and I will sell it”. He concluded.
