post harvest losses |
That Nigeria
is losing ten billion naira to post harvest damages alone in this dispensation
of economy diversification should be a thing of concern to all and sundry.
The Country
Director, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) Mr. Michael Ojo,
recently in Lagos said that preliminary research shows Nigeria as losing up to
N10 billion to post harvest damage which of course was worrisome in this
particular dispensation which its hallmark is commercial agriculture aimed at
achieving food security and ensuring more earning to generating employment to
both the youths and women.
By this revelation,
it has put on spot the programme of commercial agriculture of the government as about 51.3 metric tonnes of food wastages
occurred due to postharvest losses occasioned by lack of best handling, processing
and marketing as this was alluded to by the Executive Director, Nigerian Stored
Products Research Institute (NSPRI), Prof. Olufemi Peters revealed at a function
in Imo state that Nigeria losses more than $8.9 billion,equivalent of N22.9
trillion annually to post-harvest food losses.
This is the
height our inability to squarely face challenges of ensuring food security and
export has taken us with no adequate provision for basic facilities that will
strengthen commercial agricultural productivity through best agronomics post
handling, availability of storage for preservation and even processing into other
derivatives for better earning.Does one need to remind the authorities of the
extension services that are struggling to survive despite its strategic role to
transferring best agronomics of planting, harvesting and post harvesting cum
primary preservation for further evacuations?
It is
obvious as one travels by road seeing many food wastages even in the course of
transporting from one state to another occasioned by accident and even
breakdown of the vehicles thereby resulting in wanton spoilage before reaching
its final market destinations. This means bad transport system for agricultural
produce mobility and lack of cold room or refrigerator vehicles for fresh
vegetables, fruits and animal milk movement from production points to market.
If as at
today with the level of our economic challenges, we as a nation has not woken
up to tackling our infrastructural facilities to boosting food productivity
through less postharvest losses, then our crave to achieve food security and
checkmate foods import may get to be a mirage.
With many
people going hungry as a result of scarcity of food cum population increase
tendency by FAO speculations, there would be no need over flogging this strong
challenge facing and drawing us backward in our pursuit of commercial
agriculture than for government to take
another proactive approach of strategic handling of postharvest losses using
technologies and innovations to reduces food wastages, otherwise the percentage
wastage will be increasing exponentially, hence food hunger to the masses.
In the face
of several temperature anomalies over agricultural cropping and livestock
keeping with frequent spells of extreme heat in the last five years (2011-2016)
as rain patterns too have been affected with unequal distribution of rainfall
within a season, there is need for government to deplore more scientific method
of curbing wastages from the quantity of food she may have been able to produce
annually in order to curb food insecurity occasioned by post harvest losses in
Nigeria.
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