To end the rejection of food exports from Nigeria to Europe and America, the Federal College of Agriculture (FCA), Moor Plantation, Ibadan, has stressed the need for adequate awareness and the adoption of technologies, already developed by colleges and institutes of agriculture in the country.
According to the institute, such technologies include plant-based pesticides, inert atmosphere silos, hermetic drums for grain storage without chemicals and the use of other health-friendly preservatives.
Specifically, the Provost of the college, Dr (Mrs) Elizabeth Augustus, said the rejection of food exports were due to agro-chemicals in crops such as beans, in attempts to prevent pest infestations in storage by people who are not trained in such practices.
She made the submissions while debunking an online report, which alleged that the exports were rejected because colleges and institutes of agriculture have been underperformed, despite huge funding provided by the Federal Government.
The online publication had submitted that the existence of these colleges should be queried due to the “rampant produce rejection”.
However, Dr Augustus refuted the claims, saying, “We do not only find this extremely myopic but also ill-informed.
Considering the level of priority placed on education in the country and enormous challenges facing the agricultural sector, FCA, Ibadan has performed (and still performing) excellently well in its mandate at training middle-level agricultural manpower.
“We agree so many things require restructuring, but improving the factors affecting agricultural mechanisation and post-harvest storage/processing is a collective responsibility of the government (federal, state and local), the agricultural research institutes, faculties of agriculture at all levels of tertiary institutions (inclusive of FCAs) and the urgently needed intervention of the lawmakers.
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Although she agreed that the FCA should be better equipped for optimum service delivery, she maintained that placing the defects in agricultural development in the country solely at the doorsteps of three colleges of agriculture was an unfair assessment.
“We train the students as best as we can, but they still require an encouraging and productive atmosphere to execute their expertise towards national development”.
“The wastages or losses recorded yearly on food production running to billions of naira is a pure reflection of unprofessional agricultural practices by untrained individuals in the farming and other value chain units of the sector”.
“We are calling the attention of the government at all levels to how these colleges should be exploited to enhance the productivity of the sector with optimised revenue generations and employment creation, especially by regular training for actors in the food chain on good agricultural practices, how to increase yield per hectare and how to store food without contamination or chemical residues,” Dr Augustus added.
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