Yam |
The National President, Yam Farmers, Processors and Exporters Association, Prof. Simon Irtwange has commended the Federal Government (FG) for giving them millions out of the N50 billion export expansion grant just as he wanted the use of weighing scale to sell yams in all market places. Prof. Irtwange said this during an interview with Foodfarmnews at Abuja recently.
Irtwange who
attributed the grant to the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment
(FMITI) recommendation to the National Export Promotion Council (NEPC), said
the amount given had assisted his association to be able to give digitalised
identity cards to members across the federation.
He pointed
that frantic effort to move yam production into mechanize farming through
ridging cultivations for more planting space to getting higher tubers yield,
saying ‘’ we want to bring in mechanization of yam production through ridging
that will improve inputs applications as
the ridges are higher to save a lot of space to plant 10,000 tubers per hectare
against 3-4000 of traditional planting on heaps with more yields ’’
He also
appreciated the FMARD for its provision of yam conditioning centres in Makurdi
and Ilasa respectively in Benue and Ekiti states, but demanded that effort to reduce the cost
of running diesel in Ilasa must be looked into with a view to changing to solar
energy for sustainability.
According to
him ‘’ In Ekiti state there is 250 metric tons of yam conditioning centre
facility, it was designed to be powered with diesel when the price was not as expensive
as what we have today twenty four houre. Now we are thinking on how this could
be changed to solar power like we have in Makudi centre where the international
yam centre is established at Zaki-biam that has many stalls, wear housing with infrastructural support’’
The yam
President advocated for the general use of weighing scale to determine prices
in all the markets like is done presently at the shoprite, instead of the old tradition of using sizes and numbers to sell, saying the method
is short changing buyers and even sellers.
‘’ Do you
know people of Nigeria are using scale to buy yams and other things in all the Shoprite
outlets, and people are buying. We want to replicate that in all our market
places to change the old selling style to modern one. This will enable us to
take measurement of demand and supply in an international way as somebody from
America may want to know the cost of yams in ton, but not in numbers or sizes’’
said yam president.
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