Lt-Rt- Capt John Okakpu, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Prof. Simon Irtwange & Prience Yandeu Amaabai, Yam Exporter to United State, during the end of the yam exporters’ stakeholders meeting held in Abuja. |
·
Minister
says we are undaunted
·
British
to train Nigeria to exploit $30 market
As
against the recent report of Nigerian yams rejection recently exported to
United Kingdom, the real exporter of the produce Prince Yandev Amaabai has
finally cleared the air saying all his consignments were cleared at the United Kingdom
(UK) and delivery to the selling ware houses. Meanwhile, Agriculture Minister,
Chief Audu Ogbeh said there was no going back.
Prince Yandev
Amaabai of Wan Nyikwagh Farms Nigeria Limited confirmed to pressmen during the
yam committee meeting held in Abuja last week Friday that his consignments were
successfully cleared at ports in United Kingdom and America pointed he was
surprised at all the newspapers’ report talking about rejection added that the phyto-sanitary certificates
to these countries had no problem contrary to news.
Amaabai who frowned at media report on this issue
advised that government agricultural policy should be encouraged and promoted
than rather being taken in destructive manner, pointed that Ghana sometimes recorded cases of tuber damages without any negative news by her local media.
Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture and Rural
Development, Audu Ogbeh has expressed dismay at the negative news trailing the
FG efforts on positioning Nigerian yams
into international market saying “We are
not going to stop because this is not enough to demoralize us. We have food to
export; never mind what the so called critics are doing. We are going to talk
to the port authority to provide cooling vans for vegetables and fresh produce
so that exporters do not lose money, while we do not lose face. We should begin
to build cold trucks that are temperature-controlled to keep the yams till the
time they have to go; we should invest in special containers for their storage.
We will go ahead with our efforts to export yam; we are determined to
reposition our people to capture the investment opportunities and benefits in
yam exports to these countries”
Chief Ogbeh
however appealed to the National
Assembly to speedy the repeal process of
1989 law prohibiting the exportation of yams and other agricultural produce saying
the law contradicts the Federal Government’s goal of diversifying the nation’s
economy.
Speaking on Thursday at the
end of the yam exporters’ stakeholders meeting, the minister revealed yam
export will contribute in no small measure to government’s efforts at
diversifying the nation’s economy.
Chief Ogbeh further
revealed adequate measures are now been put in place to avert the circumstances
that led to the initial rejection of Nigeria’s yam export.
According to him “the
Federal government position is that we are exporting yams and we will continue
to export yam because we are the biggest producers in the world and we should
be the biggest exporter.
The minister further cleared the air on the purported
rejection of yams in the UK, stating what happened was
actually a lack of facility to preserve the freshness of the yams while
packaging and transporting them to the UK.
‘’We are talking, there is
a manufacturer now who will be installing conditioner rooms both at the ports
and the farms and the mini centres where these things are produced to keep them
fresh and to have them packaged properly according to demand standards in
Europe and once that is done, the Europeans have no quarrel. The Americans, the
Canadians are looking for yams at least the large populations of Nigerians
abroad are looking for this.”
“we will
continue doing the business, expanding it, we have a team coming from the
United Kingdom shortly to sit down with us and discuss export possibilities, I
was there 11 days ago and they said that food market is £30 billion and Nigeria
is taking just £15 million and they were wondering what we were doing, there is
no reason what we can’t take 10 percent and if they need things from us and we
can produce those things to their standard, what are we waiting for?”
“The team
from U.K will come to Nigeria, spend about a week or more, then they will sit
down with Nigerian exporters, they (exporters) will hear from the U.K
authorities on how they want these things brought to their country, then
whoever fails to meet the standard shouldn’t blame anybody, but also we don’t
want Nigeria being embarrassed out there by people who are in a hurry to send
things without meeting standards.”
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