Organic farming: Nigeria must meet standards to ensure market, says country coordinator

The Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative in Nigeria (EOA) Country Coordinator, Dr. Olugbenga Adeoluwa has said that Nigeria could not afford to fold her hands in the area of standard and certification of organic produce and products considering the market opportunities in the sub sector of agriculture.
He said this at the inauguration of a task force instituted to constantly monitor registered members to ensure conformity to best agronomics practice. 

Dr. Adeoluwa said that in view of premium price receivable for organic produce there should be more government support in terms of entrenching proactive organic policy in all its strategic agencies because the private practitioners could not alone drive the sector especially when it comes to pushing for an act of legal operation at the National Assembly through the executive arm of government for easy passage.

While speaking on the law the national task force would use for effective operation, he said they were to deploy private sector bye-law that would enable them to effectively protect the practice of organic farming as name of defaulters among practitioners would be constantly published on website to keep consumers abreast of compliance with standard within the country.

He said the task force members would have to police the practitioners pending when a bill for an Act would be enacted by the appropriate authorities.

Introducing the composition of the task force, the project manager, Ecological Organic Agricultural Initiative in Nigeria, Oyewole said that the members would make unannounced inspections to members’ farms so as to ensure standard and compliance to organic production rules.

He listed the terms of reference for Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) as (1) Ensuring credibility of PGS group (2) Conduct at least one unannounced inspection to certified farms (3) Track authenticity of certificates and (4) Ensure strict adherence to existing approved national standard adding that members would be drawn from nine different organizations including Association of Organic Agriculture Practitioners of Nigeria (NOAN).

Former Military Administrator,  Jigawa State and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Excel Standard Limited Lt.  Col. Abubakar Zakariya Maimalari (Rtd) , said Nigeria was not yet ready to harness increasing opportunities in organic farming due to the following under listed reasons:

1.       Lack of understanding of organic agriculture principle and practice

2.       Lack of organic agriculture platforms in Government Ministries, Department and Agencies for policy formulation and implementation

3.       Poor understanding of business opportunities derivable from organic agriculture

4.       Lack of technical knowledge for organic production.

5.       Little or almost none existence of extension services to assist organic farmers in the country.

6.       Challenges of sourcing organic inputs

7.       Little awareness on the required procedures for certification of organic produce and products.

8.       Appropriate policies to provide enabling environment for organic agriculture business development.

The representative from organic division, FMARD Mr. Isah Adamu who doubled as chairman of EOA Nigeria apologised for the shift in the programme from Kano to Lagos state with appreciation to the host for accepting to shoulder the responsibility adding that the conference must be able to appraise some achievements of the summit since inception based on each communiqués of the previous conferences from 2016.

About 90 participants from across all sectors including the Organic Division of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control (NAFDAC), National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), Consumers Oriented Organization, Post-Harvest handling and the Media, gathered to brainstorm on the push of strategies that would enhance efficient organic farming in Nigeria.