Lack of quality testing and poor packaging are among the reasons that hold back Nigeria’s agricultural export potential, despite policy priorities attached to the sector, the Director-General, African Centre for Supply Chain, Dr Obiora Madu, has said.
He indicated that quality testing to ensure that products meet international standards were crucial for accessing global markets.
To reduce post-harvest losses, he said, the nation also needs a sufficient number of cold storage facilities and more access to cutting-edge technologies.
He pointed out that Nigerian agricultural goods would find it difficult to achieve international standards and compete in foreign markets without strict quality control procedures and better packaging.
He said failure to solve gaps in testing labs, specialized cold storage facilities, and packaging facilities would result in more losses for farm exports.
He pointed out that although other exporting nations had upgraded their testing, packing, and storage facilities, Nigeria was also dealing with expensive logistics, which caused the cost of exporting agricultural goods from Nigeria to be much greater than that of other nations.
He pointed out that other nations have better packaging, which increases demand for their goods globally.
According to President of the Federation of Agricultural Commodity Association of Nigeria (FACAN), Victor Iyama, exports of agricultural and related goods must increase. He urged the government to create export clusters to guarantee targeted processing and increased output.
He believes an upsurge in rural demand will be a trigger for the entire economy.
He said export opportunities have been made possible by the growing prices of agricultural commodities and that, should the prices hold in various grain markets, farmers would probably profit from the higher prices.
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