The Federal Government has put in place modalities to ensure that farmers get the Global Good Agricultural Practices (GlobalGAP) certification, which is currently limiting the country’s agro allied exports to Europe and the United States.
Heineken Lokpobiri, Minister of State for Agriculture, made this known to journalist during a recent tour of Atlantic Shrimpers Limited’s Shrimp Farm in Badagry, Lagos.
“Certification is the major challenge that is facing agro product. Nigeria has zero global certification standards, while Kenya has over 1000 certification and South Africa has over 2000 certification,”Lokpobiri said.
“We inaugurated an inter-ministerial committee and gave them the mandate to go and work on modalities for Nigeria’s attainment of the certifications, so that we can export our agro products,” the Minister of State said.
For any country to obtain the Global GAP certification, producers must undergo voluntary audits that verify that crops are produced, packed, handled, and stored as safely as possible to minimise risks of microbial food safety hazards, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
With Nigeria in dire need of dollars in the face of acute shortage that has thrown Africa’s biggest oil producer into recession, experts say Global GAP certification can cushion the impact of recession if farmers can export home grown products to Europe, America and to over 10 million Nigerians in the diaspora.
Lokpobiri stated that it is very disheartening to know that yam exported from Ghana to the international market is accepted but yam exported from Nigeria is rejected owing to lack of certification.
He noted that government has failed to address the issue because the sector was abandoned in the past but with the renewed commitment to the sector, the government is addressing the issues now and in few years’ time the country would attain self-sufficiency in most of our staple foods.
The minister for state commended Atlantic Shrimpers for its massive investment in shrimps, ensuring the company that the ministry would ensure that the project succeeds.
Kamlesh Kabra, managing director, Atlantic Shrimpers, said the company exported about $4 billion worth of shrimps last year and with government support are hoping to do much more this year.
The managing director stated that the company is the first to culture shrimps in Nigeria. He added that the company is one of the biggest players in the industrial subsector of fish with over 70 trawlers providing jobs for more than 1,000 Nigerians.
Kabra also said that the company’s shrimp’s farm at Badagry has provided 400 direct and indirect jobs Nigerians working on the farm. Shrimp and prawn exports topped agro export in Q3, 2016; representing 37.2 percent of agricultural exports for the period, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recent foreign trade breakdown report.
Josephine Okojie
