The federal government has declared intention to start quarantine services at Dawanau International Grains market in Kano State with a view to addressing some of the perennial challenges and bottlenecks in the country’s export market.
The minister of agriculture and rural development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono who disclosed this in Kano when he visited Gezawa Commodity Exchange Market, lamented the lose Nigeria had suffered from rejection of some of its exportable commodities due to adultration and misuse of preservatives on exportable agricultural produce.
Nanono revealed the plan after he had been briefed about the schedules of services to be rendered across the agriculture value chain at Gezawa Commodity market on completion part of which included quarantine services for export commodities.
He said the government would contract SGS Inspection Services Nigeria Limited,to ensure that standards are met for export of the commodities.
According to him, “We are now thinking of having a quarantine in the Dawanau market the biggest grains market in the whole of Africa and most of exportable commodities pass through that market, probably about 75 percent of them pass through that market, I think we should also trying involve SGS to make sure standards are met for export of our commodities so that we avert this kind of problem that are affecting our operations or our export in this country.
“We have a situation that we have exportable commodities which we cannot export because of the adultration and the misuse of fertilizers and other things like that. I will give you example the hibiscus which used to be the important item for export in this country but it has to be banned because of the adultration; now the chances have gone to our neighbours they come and buy our hibiscus just clean it and sell it to foreign countries.
“If you take the red beans that has also been banned recently, it’s not adultration, it’s the misuse of the application of chemicals so that beans are containing high content of chemicals beyond the tolerable limit of consumption. So I think this commodity market for me does a most important function that will promote export of our commodities in this country” the minister added.
The project consultant, Gezawa Commodity Market, Mr. Binfa Binchang appealed to the federal government to key into the project by providing enough agricultural machinery for farmers to boost their productivity, saying the market once completed would reduce unemployment by generating over 15, 000 jobs for the youth across the value chain.
