EU BANS NIGERIA’S FOOD EXPORTS
The European Union has just suspended some agricultural
food exports from Nigeria. The food items banned from Europe till June 2016 are
beans, sesame seeds, melon seeds, dried fish and meat, peanut chips and palm
oil. This is a setback for a nation that desperately needs to expand its export
basket to boost domestic agricultural activities and create jobs.
According to the European Food Safety Authority, the rejected beans were found to contain between 0.03mg per kilogramme to 4.6mg/kg of dichlorvos pesticide, when the acceptable maximum residue limit is 0.01mg/kg. The embargo is a reflection of our inability to adhere to global standards, and this has come to haunt us at the international level again.
For some
time now, the EU has been warning Nigeria that the items constitute danger to
human health because they “contain a high level of unauthorised pesticide.” The
pesticide is applied when the products are being prepared for export. The EU
said it had issued 50 notifications to Nigerian beans exporters since January
2013 and Nigerian authorities haven’t taken any significant step to reverse the
situation. Likewise, the United Kingdom also issued 13 border rejection alerts
to Nigerian beans exporters between January and June 2015.According to the European Food Safety Authority, the rejected beans were found to contain between 0.03mg per kilogramme to 4.6mg/kg of dichlorvos pesticide, when the acceptable maximum residue limit is 0.01mg/kg. The embargo is a reflection of our inability to adhere to global standards, and this has come to haunt us at the international level again.
It confounds many that this problem has been with us for some time and nothing strategic has been done to deal with the situation. In 2013 for instance, 24 commodities of Nigerian origin exported to the UK were rejected, while the figure climbed to 42 food products in 2014. Some of the items were said to have been contaminated by aflatoxins, making them unfit for consumption.
Paul Orhii, the Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control explained that the problem is caused by exporters because they don’t comply with regulatory requirements for semi-processed and processed commodities. NAFDAC has not conducted its regulatory oversight properly and needs to put stringent measures in place to monitor our products and guarantee them as safe for export before the next EU review in 2016.
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