Yam farmers hail FG for grant, advocates use of scale to sell

 

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.