From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Worried by the rejection and poor grading of commodities from Nigeria, some experts in the sector, yesterday, in Abuja, formulated and endorsed policies for standardisation for global acceptability.
The experts were drawn from Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG), the Bill and Gates Foundation and the Nigeria National Accreditation System.
NABG Director General, Kabir Ibrahim, said it was embarrassing that goods from Nigeria seldom get accepted in the international market because of low grading.
Ibrahim observed that even in the local market consumers do not get value for their money, which sometimes, nudge them to get foreign commodities.
He said: “As most of you may be aware, Nigerian commodities struggle to perform effectively in the international market because a lot of our commodities are not standardised and graded, so they end up being rejected in these markets.
“Even within the domestic market, there is a mixture of standardised products and products that are not standardised, the consumer is forced to pick everything off the shelves as they are, so we are introducing and supporting the development of this policy to ensure commodities being produced in Nigeria are graded and standardised so that the farmers, who produced these commodities receive fair value.”
Also, Senior Programme Officer, Agriculture, Bill Gates Foundation, (BMGF), Dr Audu Grema, envisaged global acceptability of Nigerian commodities and partnership between importers and exporters, following the policy formulation.
Grema said: “At the end of the validation workshop, we expect greater access to the standards of ratings, greater partnership with exporters and importers to standards and ratings as applicable to Nigeria and greater knowledge and awareness around adulteration and poor standards that can offend the system that had been set up.”
A consultant and Director General of Nigeria National Accreditation System and Project, Celestine Okanya, said with the deliberate move by the experts rejection of commodities from Nigeria would be a thing of the past.